There were 4,743 victims of lynching between 1882 and 1968. Of those, 1,297 were white and 3,446 were black. (Lynchings occurred in 44 states. There were more whites than blacks lynched in 25 of those 44 states).

That means that there were a hundred white Union soldiers who died in four years' fighting to end slavery for every black who was lynched in 86 years.

I once asked you to guess how many of those lynched were guilty of the crimes they had been strung up for.  If I remember correctly (please correct me if I'm remembering wrong), you said, "about a third".  Sounds roughly right.  I wouldn't be surprised if it were more, but I won't quibble.

So we've got about 2000 innocent black guys who were murdered by the mob in just under a century.

Sad and thank goodness we don't do this kind of thing anymore.  But try to keep it in perspective.  Millions of innocent people all over the world have lost their lives from injustice, often sponsored by governments, never mind the millions more who were victims of mob violence.

Honouring Confederate war heroes?  I'm betting that many of them were more deserving of a statue than a large number of lynching victims.  How many people know their full stories or care?   Could you make money opening a Confederate War Heroes Museum today?

Those considering the appropriateness of tributes to heroes of the past who don't measure up to our standards need to be mindful of not only of how times change but the stupendous hypocrisy involved in selectively removing some monuments while leaving others intact.  We see no calls for demolishing Maya pyramids even though we know all about the bloody rituals that were carried out on top of them.  The statue of Maquina, a famous and well-documented Northwest Coast Indian chief with a large retinue of slaves who is commended for restricting human sacrifice among the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) to only occasional big events instead of weekly or monthly potlatches, still stands in Victoria, B.C. but the statue of John A. MacDonald, considered by many to be the father of the country, was removed because he wrote that Indians should become assimilated to Canadian society at large and become citizens like everyone else, thus disrespecting Native culture.

I think we've been through this before.  I don't contest the election result.  I do think there was massive voting fraud, just not enough to change the result.

Half of American voters believe the system is broken.  Democrats especially have no interest in fixing it.

Hope you get through this okay.  I'll say a little prayer for you.  It can't hurt.

re: 40 miles north of NYC

Nice area.  I've visited New York City several times.  Once we took a drive up through the Hudson River valley and into the Catskills.  Lovely.

re: Death in Venice

Great movie.  The book is even better.  Way back I studied German literature and Der Tod in Venedig was one of the first novels I read from start to finish in German.  It's relatively easy (not as easy as the likewise short and now suddenly very popular La Peste by Camus, though).

Of course, honoring just a few of those who suffered is a no no because it ignores all the rest who haven't been memorialized, so it's better not to get started with trivial pursuits such as the museum.

And let's pretend that whites were lynched because of their color.

And now that, there were more union soldiers killed in the civil war than blacks lynched and hell, lets muddy the waters further by citing that enough of them deserved it , so again why get started.  

Got any more excuses, I mean those were winners.

Thanks, prayers can't hurt. Good will always helps. I'm more appreciative towards you than I may come across when discussing the other stuff.

I saw the movie too. It's hard to argue with Visconti , but the melodramatic content, particularly the use of Mahler's music in a way which wasn't very reflective of the inherent depth he instilled into it. 

Apollonius (Theocritos) said:

Half of American voters believe the system is broken. Democrats especially have no interest in fixing it.

Do you honestly believe Republicans would cross the aisle to help Democrats abolish the electoral system?

I assume you are talking about the Electoral College.  It would require a Constitutional amendment, passed by a two thirds majority of state legislatures.   So no, it's not going to happen.

The U.S. is a federal state.  Canada is similar and so is the E.U.   Individual states have, in effect, a  veto against altering the way the big things (like how presidents are selected) operate.

What is possible, is to reform voting regulations.  That's because they are there merely to enforce laws already on the books, such as that you must be an American citizen to vote or that you cannot vote twice.

I think you need to start with a uniform system of voting across all 50 states.

If you have concerns about mail in ballots, then fix what you think is wrong.

If you have concerns about voting machines, then switch to pen and paper (very difficult to hack).

And, most importantly, don't blindly accept every claim of voter fraud as true.  Investigate it.

Analysis

www.abc.net.au

America is arming up to protect itself from an insurgency sparked from within

With 20,000 troops in Washington, the US Capitol looks anything but the shining pillar of democracy it's supposed to be. Combined with Donald Trump's impeachment, it serves as a stark reminder that democracies are fragile, writes Kathryn Diss.

Read more from www.abc.net.au

Jenifer (Zarknorph) said:

I think you need to start with a uniform system of voting across all 50 states. If you have concerns about mail in ballots, then fix what you think is wrong. If you have concerns about voting machines, then switch to pen and paper (very difficult to hack). And, most importantly, don't blindly accept every claim of voter fraud as true.  Investigate it.

These are the very suggestions that those of us who ask for tightening up of voting procedures have been talking about forever.  

Jenifer (Zarknorph) said:

 And, most importantly, don't blindly accept every claim of voter fraud as true.  Investigate it.

Why do I have to keep repeating myself?  We don't blindly accept every claim of voter fraud.  They all have to be investigated on a case-by-case basis.