Saying those things - which I respect your view - is simply wrong and does a horrible injustice to those

who want a discussion. I'm hardly 'far left.' These statues have long been ignored and allowed to fall into disrepair. Candidly, most are forgotten after being erected in direct defiance of civil rights laws that were evolving.

So don't simply say  far left and appeasement. Could be some of that for sure.Many conservatives - like me (moderate) support the discussion and removal of some. 

For me, the best thing to be done is not mothball them- put them in a museum, give them context. There is a museum for goodness' sake about the Holocaust. It exists on many levels- to teach, to warn, to mourn among them.  

 The very basis these men held rank was to support and defend a rebellion against the USA

 From many source" [t]he Convention of 1898 interpreted its mandate from the people to be, to disfranchise as many Negroes and as few whites as possible. "

You should not erase these misguided monuments. Don't mothball them. Take them down from a public square ? In some instances, yes. Give me some facts about one or many though, and let's decide- for example:

AR, Newport: Jackson Guards Memorial, built in 1914. Monument consists of a statue of a single Confederate soldier and a roster of the men who served in the Jackson Guards and the slaves who supported them. The only Confederate monument in Arkansas built entirely with funds raised by private subscription, although it was built on a prominent piece of land donated by the city of Hot Springs

I think it may be worth leaving that one as is. There surely are others.  

I've worked with some of the worst schools in the NYC area for the last 9 years. It's criminal how badly these kids have been shortchanged in education and thus life. The entire system is stacked against them and it's the governments that are doing the stacking, in service of holding voting power and getting donations.

BUT, those govt folks are all harrumphy about statues and history now (and whatever the problem du jour was before) because they use it to distract people from the real, substantive issue...crappy education. And once those statues come down, guess what....the schools still suck.

What I want is less of this symbolic bullsh-t and more focus on education, economic opportunity, family support, and the other REAL issues facing folks that might once have been victimized in the south.