Independent Commission is Calling for Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery to be Taken Down

On September 14, 2022, an independent commission called for the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery to be dismantled and removed.

This is part of the Naming Commission’s final report to Congress on the renaming of military bases and assets that honor the Confederacy.

That same day, the panel members of the commission published a final list of base roads, buildings, ships and other structures that should be renamed. The AP reported that “unlike the commission’s recommendations earlier this year laying out new names for nine Army bases, there were no suggested names for the roughly 1,100 assets across the military that bear Confederate names.”

Retired Army Brigadier General Ty Seidule, vice-chair of the commission, revealed that the final cost for all of the commissions’ renaming recommendations will total out to be $62,450,030. The cost for the recent renaming proposal announced on September 14 is $40,957,729, and is included in the aforementioned total figure.

The AP report noted that the recent set of assets encompasses the “Arlington memorial, two Navy ships and some Army vessels to street signs, water towers, athletic fields, hospital doors and even decals on recycling bins, according to the panel.”

Seidule recounted that the panel came to the conclusion that the memorial at Arlington was “problematic from top to bottom.” He asserted that the panel urged for it to be completely removed, with only the granite base to be kept in place.

The AP report detailed what the statue represents:

The statue, unveiled in 1914, features a bronze woman, crowned with olive leaves, standing on a 32-foot pedestal, and was designed to represent the American South. 

The pedestal features 14 shields, engraved with the coats of arms of the 13 Confederate states and Maryland, which didn’t secede or join the Confederacy.

The panel’s broader recommendations for name changes were published back in May. The panel called for new names for 9 Army bases that honored Confederate officers. The AP listed off the following monuments that the panel wants name changes for:

Fort Bragg in North Carolina; Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia; Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia; Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Polk in Louisiana and Fort Rucker in Alabama.

These recommendations are part of a larger move to erase American history following the death of George Floyd in May 2020. That summer was marked by major unrest, which was exploited by the cultural Left. One way it did so was by opening up discussions about erasing Confederate monuments and other artifacts of American history that are shrouded in controversy.

BLP has previously reported on several cases of monument removal efforts being launched over the last two years as a result of the iconoclastic fervor that was unleashed during the George Floyd riots.

These culture war battles will continue to rage on as the Left goes to great lengths to erase American history and impose its universalist vision on the rest of the country. The Right would be wise to take these battles seriously and take a firm stance against the iconoclastic Left. These people should not be allowed to get easy wins against the Historic American Nation.

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