Where I live . . . unfortunately

In 2017, a Monument to Slavery . . . I mean a monument to the enslavers . . . was removed from the courthouse square in Bradenton, Florida.

Like other Monuments to Slavery, Bradenton’s monument was erected at the height of Jim Crow in the South by the dementia-addled wenches of the Daughters of the Confederacy.

Now the Manatee County Commission wants to re-install the monolith using the same old bogus justifications of historical value. The only new twist involves a new justification that installing a Monument to Slavery will somehow remind people of the Bad Old Days, thus preventing racism and bigotry: the “history repeating itself” excuse.

What changed since the monuments removal in 2017?

The voters stuffed the county commission with right-wing Christofascists wannabes, all disciples of the Dark Fuhrer in the Florida governor’s mansion, Ron DeFascist. (The county even named a new park after the governor.)

This is no surprise to Bradenton residents. Glorifying a dark, blood-stained past is part of Manatee County’s culture. Starting in 1939, residents formed the Hernando DeSoto Historical Society, based on a federally-funded commission to make a Best Guess where the Spanish conquistador and his raiding party of cut-throats landed in Florida. The Swanson Commission guessed it might have been near the mouth of the Manatee River in Manatee County.

“De Soto was instrumental in contributing to the development of a hostile relationship between many Native American tribes and Europeans. When his expedition encountered hostile natives in the new lands, more often than not it was his men who instigated the clashes.” — Wikipedia By Herb Roe, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6066933

Every year, a parade is sponsored by the Hernando DeSoto Historical Society, a collection of bourgeois White guys with too much money and free time. Under the guise of “enriching” the community, they get to put on glorified Halloween costumes and parade through the city tossing cheap shiny beads to the masses. The event ends with the conquistadors “capturing” the City of Bradenton — sans the slaughter of Native Americans.

The history of DeSoto’s bloody journey through the southeast United States in the 1500s is conveniently overlooked, as is the obvious similarity to Germany’s Lebensraum activities during the 1930s and 40s in Europe. DeSoto and Henrich Himmler share quite a few traits:

• Both wanted to steal foreign land for a European power.
• Both served an absolute ruler.
• Both believed the indigenous people were inferior humans, although DeSoto referred to them as savages and Himmler called them Untermensch, sub-human.
• Both ordered massacres of these inferior humans.
• Both believed god was on their side.

It’s all part of the Flori-Duh political clown circus that stretches from Tallahassee to the realm of the Orange Emporer of Mar-A-Loco.

But at least it doesn’t snow. There is that.