I went to one of many Robert E. Lee High Schools - Here is why I think we need to change the name.

I graduated in 1985 from Robert E. Lee High School in Midland Tx. I didn't know anything about Robert E. Lee when I attended the school other than the romanticized version found in Texas textbooks. It never occurred at the time to learn about Lee and it never occurred to me that the idea of naming a school after a confederate general might be hurtful to my fellow students. While this blog is about my school there isn't a doubt in my mind that most of this blog is going to be applicable to many of the schools in this country named after confederate generals. 

Before I get into the history of why the school is named after a confederate general I want to get one of the most popular (and weakest) arguments for keeping the name out of the way. It's a quote by George Santayana (often falsely attributed to Winston Churchill or others)...

Do you know who Benedict Arnold was? Of course you do... because you were taught who that was. Changing the name of a school or removing a statue will NOT make people forget the past. Glorifying the past is not the same as remembering it. Teach the past. Put it in museums and classrooms and make sure people learn real history. Naming schools after someone is an honor. Naming a school after someone who fought against his country is whitewashing. Would you feel comfortable with a school named after Benedict Arnold? Like it or not, it is exactly the same with regard to members of the confederacy.

People claim again and again that Lee fought for the south because he was a patriot, that might be 100% true, but it doesn't change the fact that by fighting for the south he was ipso facto fighting for the right of people to own other people. He took up arms against his country and Lincoln wanted him tried for treason but was talked out of it for the good of the country. After taking office in 1865 (after the assassination of Lincoln) Andrew Johnson pardoned most of the confederates who took part in the war, but not Robert E. Lee. Lee requested the pardon and swore the amnesty oath but Lee was not pardoned and his citizenship was never restored in his lifetime (it was eventually restored in 1975 by President Ford, 14 years after the school in Midland Texas opened in 1961. 

Robert E. Lee was not pardoned and his citizenship was never restored in his lifetime...

Do you know how the various schools ended up getting named after confederates in the first place? Because that is an actual story about forgetting and changing history. 

The war ended in 1865. After it was over Lee himself asked that there be no statues or commemorations of him (which means that this whole argument is ignoring HIS wishes). It was that way until 29 years later in 1894 a group called the United Daughters of the Confederacy came around spent all kinds of money to whitewash history. They were the first to claim the war was about states rights, but if you go and read the various Declarations of Secession of the southern states they all talk about two things, and two things only... the right to own slaves and the failure of the northern states to return runaway slaves. Those are the causes as listed in the actual texts that were used to succeed.

The Daughters spent money all over the country passing off a revisionist history of what happened in the war and glorified the south as if it was some noble cause. So when you look at where these statues and many of the schools come from it is not in any way remembering the actual history that was, it is honoring a lie... and as I said General Lee himself asked that it not be done.

“As regards the erection of such a monument as is contemplated,” Lee wrote of an 1866 proposal, “my conviction is, that however grateful it would be to the feelings of the South, the attempt in the present condition of the country, would have the effect of retarding, instead of accelerating its accomplishment; of continuing, if not adding to, the difficulties under which the Southern people labor.”

His own relatives still say he wouldn't want them and that they should be removed! Whether you admire Lee or not his wishes have been dishonored with every school name and every statue.

But what about our own school? It wasn't founded or funded by the Daughters like the Lee High in Tyler was... no, it was founded in 1961 as an all-white school after the supreme court had already said ruled that such schools were illegal in 1954. It wasn't until the civil rights movement that all-white schools started once again being named after confederates (I honestly don't think it was a coincidence).

It remained all-white until 1969. The only black people at Lee in 1968 were the cleaning staff. (if you doubt this the yearbooks are available online at classmates.com - I had been given the wrong dates once and as I want to know REAL HISTORY I went and checked the yearbooks to verify them myself). 

Lee High literally had to be forced to integrate. It was named Robert E. Lee High, not as some honor to General Lee (who I have pointed out at least twice DIDN'T WANT it) but as a direct dog whistle. It's a fake history and whether I or anyone else finds it hurtful or offensive shouldn't matter... it is hurtful and offensive to those whose family were once slaves and know they go to a school that daily glorifies a man who fought and killed his countrymen in order to keep it going. If it was really about history, we would all already know this information. It's never been about history. It's been about cleaning history. It's been about whitewashing. I loved my school. I'm proud of my accomplishments and the friends I made there, changing the name would not change those feelings,  not even a little.   

Feel free to leave your thoughts, I have tried to be respectful, I hope you will do the same.

If change is such a bad thing why'd they ever get rid of smoker's corner?

Here is the link to the actual texts of the documents of secession. 

Conservative vs. Liberal - Fucking Nonsense!!!

A friend of mine posted the following piece of trash on his Facebook...

This one really pisses me off and I feel the need to set the record straight!

Point by ridiculous fucking point: 

Guns: Only the extremists want to ban guns. A total ban has not ever been a goal. We only want common sense gun laws, something President Trumplestilskin is even starting to agree with. You know this and yet perpetuate this nonsense. 

I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue - I hope!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2018

Vegetarians: I was a vegetarian growing up (This is true, I was). We were friends. Did I ever once try to stop you from eating meat? Nope. And guess what, my vegetarian liberal friends don't try to stop me either. Once again, you are talking about extremists.

Being Down and Out: I've been down and out. Never asked anyone to take care of me. I used my unemployment benefits, but those were paid for by my employers. By the way 70%of people on aid have at least one job. I know you think they can magically better themselves but since conservatives are also against paying living wages that makes it difficult for the already disenfranchised to suddenly pull themselves up from their bootstraps. Especially if they have children. 

Complaining: You crybabies are boycotting the NFL, Starbucks, Target and 100 other organizations because your feelings got hurt by something they did. Not to mention repeated calls for the firing of Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Woopi Goldberg and a host of other. In fact you can put this one in the straight out lie department.

God: I seriously doubt any liberal had come to your house and asked you not to talk about your God. Likewise they don't try to stop you from paying or going to church. The most we do is try to keep it out of government. That's it. I see crosses on every third or fourth house where I live. That's your right. Build a 50ft tall Jesus in your back yard, it's your property. Your religion doesn't belong in the public square. Oh, and by the way... do you know who else is against public prayer? Jesus. Matthew 6:5.... read your own holy book sometime. 

Health: I have fantastic insurance. Paid for by my employer (who, by the way pays about 10k as their portion of my premiums - while I pay around $2400 myself). But the prices are high because the poor have to use hospitals like they have revolving doors (they also have to wait until they are desperate becuase they can get no preventative care for anything). They can't pay their bills and that gets passed on to all of us. 3 out of 5 bankruptcies in this country (over 600,000 a year) are people who had insurance and still couldn't pay their medical bills. Why is looking at any way to fix a broken system a bad thing?

I didn't delete it. But you are absolutely right I'm very offended at this stupidity.

Syrian Refugees and the lies we tell to stop them.

There are a lot of MEMEs out there trying to confuse otherwise smart carring people into thinking the USA taking any Syrian refugees is the wrong thing to do.

Many are playing on the idea that we have to help our own people first. Many of the people spreading these ideas didn't give a damn about the homeless, veterans or the elderly until they needed a reason to deny help to a group they like even less. In other words they are using the people they didn't care about last week to stop the people they don't care about this week.

America is the greatest country in the world because it cares about people. Our at least that's the way it should be.

So let's talk about some of these MEMEs.

On the surface this one seems pretty on target.  Why would we deny our seniors a cozy of living increase.  That's outrageous.  Completely  ridiculous.

Until you realize the cost of living didn't go up last year. I mean the actual cost of living. It's called a cost of living increase because the coast of living has to go up to receive it. With the economy in recovery the cost of living went down last year.  That's why there is no cost of living increase.  It has nothing to do with refugees, dumbass!
 
From the Social Security Website: Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Information for 2016. With consumer prices down over the past year, monthly Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for nearly 65 million Americans will not automatically increase in 2016.  

This one. Wow.  Yeah it truly does stuck that we are not taking care of our vets.  If our president thinks it's right putting refugees before vets he is very wrong.  I won't stand for this bullshit and neither should you. 

Except, it's the Republicans in the Senate that keep voting down aid for our vets. Democrats have put up many bills to help vets.  The president has publicly supported those bills and the Republicans have killed them.  In fact the GOP has voted at least seven times to not support the troops.

The same republicans who want to deny entry in to the US to Syrian refugees are the people denying aid to vets. The same people. 

If you told me two of them were poisoned? Depends, how do you know any of them are poisoned? Are you the damn grape expert? No, you are not the Syrian refugee expert either. So far we have not been attacked by a refugee. The right might want to claim the Tsarnev brothers were refugees, they were not. They were immigrants, not refugees. The vetting process for refugees is two years. Over 50% are rejected. Apparently it's a pretty good process.

Well except for this guy. Apparently I am way off base. That vetting process really screwed the pooch when it let this jack off into the country. In fact I take it all back! The only way to stop terrorists is to ban these foreigners.

Wait? What? He was born in the USA? Born in Arlington County Virginia? He wasn't vetted because we don't vet our own citizens? It's clear what we have to do then. We have to stop letting US citizens immigrate to America. That'll teach us.

Or, we can stop living in fear and be America.

How to Troll liberal blogs - For Dummies.

Sooner or later if I ever get any readers I will eventually get a troll.  I'm looking forward to it.  That being said there is a proper way to troll. If you want to do it successfully you will at least attempt to follow the rules.

1) Make sure that you disrespectfully refer to the twice elected sitting president of the United states as Obummer, Muslim in Chief, That Mentorship or Dear Leader. Other right wing asshats may not know who you are talking about otherwise.

I actually saw someone refer to the president as that Kenyan Islamofacist Socialist today.  That was some good trolling right there.

Nothing makes your point better then insulting the president.  Feel free to use this hilarious trolling picture.

2) USE ALL CAPS.  IT'S KIND OF LIKE YELLING, AND WE ALL KNOW THE LOUDEST ASSHAT WINS!

3) Use bad grammar.  I'm no expert either but try, you on the other hand do not have. If you spell liberal as libral, librel, labradoodle or whatever trust me every other 4th grade reading level teabagger will still understand and respect you. I'm not talking about something simple like using the wrong form of your or you're, heck everyone occasionally does that.

4) The only sources you should use are brietbart.com, the blaze and little tiny right wing news sources no one has ever heard of.

5) Make sure you tell me my sources are all part of the liberal media.  Even if I source factcheck.org, heck even if I source Fox News or the Wall Street Journal. If I use it then it must be a lefty rag.

Follow these simple rules and you will be well on your easy to successfully rolling this or any other liberal blog.

I'm what's wrong with the Middle Class!

I work 90 hours a week in the oil fields of West Texas. Literally 90 hours a week and I can barely make ends meet for me and my family. Isn't that just ridiculous in this society? I make rich people richer and barely see my wife and kids during my two week on hitches.

And if I don't get my 90hrs I can't afford my bills and put myself deeper in debt. It's not easy work either. We have no scheduled breaks 12-15 hours a day on most wells. God forbid we take a vacation day. When we do we get paid 8 hours straight time. Every day of vacation I take costs me several hundred dollars in pay. My employer even schedules my 14 day hitches to start on Tuesdays just to get out of paying one day of overtime (my hitch ends on Monday).

Everyone around me is right wing and can't be made to understand that they continually vote against their own self interests. Sly politicians have convinced them to vote for non issues instead of something that could actually help them. They keep the middle class poor and make the poor absolutely destitute and somehow have convinced people it's the poor people's fault.

It's not the poor people's fault. It's just not. You idiots want to cry and whine about welfare recipients. They are not getting your money. Corporate welfare is not paying their share. The rich are dodging their taxes so you have to pay more and more and more. You cry about welfare cheats when very few exist. You cry about drug testing that actually costs more then it saves. You call these people lazy and tell them to get a job, but at the same time you are against giving them a living wage.

Wake the Fuck up! There was a time in this country when hard work got you somewhere. Now all it does is line the pockets of the rich! My grand parents bought a nice home and raised 6 kid's on one 40hr a week income. Stop letting them steal the American dream and making us their bitch!