Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: `Civil War` In Virginia

  1. #1
    Senior Member Apricity Funding Member
    "Friend of Apricity"

    Oresai's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Orkney
    Meta-Ethnicity
    Celtic
    Ethnicity
    Scottish
    Ancestry
    Scotland, Ireland, Sweden.
    Taxonomy
    Baltid
    Politics
    SNP
    Religion
    Heathen
    Age
    47
    Posts
    719
    Blog Entries
    4
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 39
    Given: 0

    0 Not allowed!

    Default `Civil War` In Virginia

    Civil War returns to Virginia: Controversy as Wal-Mart seeks to build a store on the edge of battlefield site


    Published Date: 05 January 2009
    By Jacqui Goddard
    in Miami
    IT WAS one of the most important battles of the American Civil War, a bloodbath in which the legendary Union leader, Lieutenant-General Ulysses S Grant, faced his Confederate counterpart, General Robert E Lee, for the first time.
    When the guns fell silent on 7 May, 1864, the Battle of the Wilderness had claimed 29,000 casualties. For nearly 145 years, the site of the two-day battle in Virginia has been considered sacred ground, with a congressional committee designating the area as being of the highest historical importance.

    But now a battle of a different nature is under way, as historians and other campaigners fight to hold back a new enemy: Wal-Mart.

    The retail giant wants permission to build a 141,000sq ft superstore at the edge of the Wilderness battlefield.

    Campaigners claim that victory for the store would pave the way for the desecration of a national shrine, "a monument to American valour, determination and courage and one of the places where the Civil War – and the nation – changed forever".

    Jim Lighthizer, the president of the Civil War Preservation Trust, which is leading the charge against the development, said: "A Wilderness Wal-Mart would wreck the unique character of the existing battlefield park and countryside.

    "It would shatter the reverent atmosphere that suffuses one of America's bloodiest battlefields, which already endures existing sprawl gnawing away at its edges."

    The Battle of the Wilderness, which involved 160,000 men, represented the start of Lt-Gen Grant's so-called Overland Campaign, a series of battles that gave the Union armies the strategic gains necessary to advance on – and ultimately capture – the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.

    Today, 2,773 acres of the Wilderness Battlefield are protected as part of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Park. Wal-Mart says that the site it has earmarked falls outside that boundary and that county authorities have long tagged the land as ripe for commercial development.

    Keith Morris, a Wal-Mart spokesman, insisted: "We recognise the significance of the Wilderness Battlefield, but we are not building on the battlefield."

    But campaigners say that the proposed construction site is still inside the "historic limits" of the battlefield as identified by a congressional committee in 1990. They also point out that Wal-Mart already has four other stores in a 20-mile radius.

    The campaign has drawn in eminent historians and Civil War experts including film-maker Ken Burns, who directed a 1990 US TV series The Civil War, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough.

    A letter sent to Wal-Mart's president, Lee Scott, signed by 253 historians, said: "The Wilderness is an indelible part of our history, its very ground hallowed by the American blood spilled there, and it cannot be moved,"

    WalMartWatch.com, a Washington-based website that campaigns against Wal-Mart over issues such as foreign outsourcing, exploitation of workers, anti-union policies and predatory pricing, has produced a protest video in which generals Grant and Lee are depicted as criticising the plans.

    The issue will come before planning hearings next month, though some campaigners fear that the retail behemoth could get a sympathetic hearing from local authorities eager to encourage new trade that could stimulate the local economy – if the plans get the go-ahead, it would bring the county an estimated $500,000 in taxes a year.


    BACKGROUND

    PROTESTERS against Wal-Mart's plans say they take courage from previous victories, such as the defeat of plans by the Walt Disney Company to build a theme park near Virginia's Manassas Battlefield in 1994, and of plans two years ago to build a casino at Gettysburg, both important US Civil War sites.

    However, Wal-Mart has triumphed elsewhere, winning permission to build stores on ancient American Indian burial grounds and close to a fragile archaeological site in Mexico.

    Civil War historian James Robertson said: "Wal-Mart stores exist to make a profit in the present so as to invest heavier in the future … yet at some point on a regular basis, every one of us needs to remember an inescapable fact of history: any nation that forgets its past has little future."


    Source....http://news.scotsman.com/world/Civil...nia.4842324.jp

  2. #2
    Banned
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Last Online
    09-17-2009 @ 10:18 PM
    Meta-Ethnicity
    Germanic
    Ethnicity
    Anglo-American
    Ancestry
    Britain (Some by way of Ulster) & Germany
    Country
    United States
    Taxonomy
    Osteuropid-NorthAlpinid
    Politics
    Ultra-Conservative/anti-Obama
    Age
    47
    Gender
    Posts
    2,154
    Blog Entries
    1
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 33
    Given: 0

    0 Not allowed!

    Default

    Shopping centers anchor by Wal-Mart stores are huge with acres of asphalt for parking. Some communities insist on landscaping to make them look more attractive. Thing is, even at peak shopping hours, 1/2 the parking spaces are empty. We can get by with fewer strip malls anchored by Wal-Mart or Target or whoever.

  3. #3
    Jägerstaffel
    Guest

    0 Not allowed!

    Default

    There's no way to conceal a Wal-Mart or make it look anything but hideous.
    Virginia is littered with the buildings anyways, we don't need anymore.

    You know, I don't think anyone would complain as much about the fact that they put 'Mom and Pop' stores out of business if they made the buildings visually appealing.
    Last edited by Jägerstaffel; 01-05-2009 at 11:04 PM. Reason: wrong word

  4. #4
    Apricity Supporter Apricity Funding Member
    "Friend of Apricity"

    Lenny's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Last Online
    07-28-2011 @ 11:09 AM
    Location
    Nearby
    Meta-Ethnicity
    Germanic
    Ethnicity
    Germanic
    Ancestry
    Scandogermania
    Country
    United States
    Taxonomy
    Gracile CM
    Politics
    "Ethnocultural-continuity"
    Religion
    Mit dem Schwan
    Gender
    Posts
    1,067
    Blog Entries
    3
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 24
    Given: 0

    0 Not allowed!

    Default

    Civil War historian James Robertson said: "[...]any nation that forgets its past has little future."
    Of course he's right. But there are other and more important factors than the "expansion of Wal-Mart" that threaten historical memory.


    The article focuses on the battlefields just south of Fredericksburg, which is arguably part of "Northern Virginia" (the southern fringe thereof)--

    Northern Virginia as a whole as of mid-2009 (2.4 million population; part of DC Metro's ~6 million).
    • 58% White-European-gentiles
      • 20% Whites with any local roots [i.e., whites with at least one of the branches of their family being born in DC/MD/VA before 1933. That year FDR's huge expansion of the federal government began; it marked the beginning of rapid growth for NoVa which has not stopped in 75 yrs...]
      • 38% Whites without any local roots; they or their parents/grandparents moved in from other states post-1933. Many of this group are transient and temporarily here.
    • 04% Jews
    • 10% American-blacks (probably nearly half of GreatMigration stock)
    • 28% Post-1965 immigrant stock
      • 14% Hispanics
      • 07% Orientals
      • 05% Muslims
      • 02% Other post-1965 stock

    note: "Roots" for white population are my own estimates based on my observations throughout life. I don't think any actual records are gathered on this. The rest are derived from http://www.census.gov/popest/countie...7-alldata.html and various religious surveys


    Can anyone guess what in these numbers would threaten historical memory a good deal more than another ugly Wal-Mart being put up somewhere?
    Last edited by Lenny; 04-15-2009 at 07:52 AM.
    Hail to You

  5. #5
    Apricity Supporter Apricity Funding Member
    "Friend of Apricity"

    Lenny's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Last Online
    07-28-2011 @ 11:09 AM
    Location
    Nearby
    Meta-Ethnicity
    Germanic
    Ethnicity
    Germanic
    Ancestry
    Scandogermania
    Country
    United States
    Taxonomy
    Gracile CM
    Politics
    "Ethnocultural-continuity"
    Religion
    Mit dem Schwan
    Gender
    Posts
    1,067
    Blog Entries
    3
    Thumbs Up
    Received: 24
    Given: 0

    0 Not allowed!

    Default

    Also-

    Manassas City is in Prince William County Virginia. (The first great battle of the U.S. Civil War was at Bull Run, near Manassas).

    In 1990, neither Manassas nor Prince William County had any appreciable number of Hispanics.
    By 2007 Manassas City was 30-35% Hispanic
    By 2007 Prince William County was 20-25% Hispanic.

    [That year, local authorities--terribly alarmed-- passed an anti-illegal-immigrant law that forced police to check people's papers whenever they stopped them for a traffic violation, when caught "loitering", and in other situations; and if found not legal they would be detained. A year later, hundreds of children had stopped showing up to public schools in the county (schools don't care about legal status of children and take all), suggesting that thousands of illegals may have fled to other counties.]


    edit: Why do I mention this: It's because, if a given classroom is 40% Hispanic, 10% other-immigrant, 10% black; that's a base right there of 60% of the younger-generation that will not really care at all about "preserving historical memory".
    Last edited by Lenny; 04-15-2009 at 08:10 AM.
    Hail to You

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •