Would the supporters of confederate monuments also support this statue?
Last edited Sat Aug 19, 2017, 04:45 PM - Edit history (1)
From 2004:
In Nelson, which some say has the highest concentration of draft resisters in Canada, those men and the women who accompanied them say they rarely think of the events that made them cross the border 30 years ago. But then, as Ms. Mock put it, what happened in Nelson this fall "brought it all back."
What happened was that a local peace activist proposed a monument to honor the "courageous legacy" of American draft resisters. The idea provoked outrage in the United States, where the presidential election had reopened wounds of the Vietnam era. Then came calls to boycott Nelson.
"The negative reaction was so immediate and so forceful that everyone was stunned," said Don Gayton, a former high school football player from Seattle, who raised five children in Nelson after immigrating to Canada during the Vietnam War. Rumors that the United States might reinstate the draft because of the Iraq war have made the expatriates wonder if they might find a whole new wave of resisters on their doorsteps and whether they will be as welcoming as an earlier generation of Canadians were to them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/fashion/greetings-from-resisterville.html?mcubz=3
The monument was shelved after protests from Americans.
Isn't the opposition to the Vietnam War part of our history to be commemorated? The draft resisters who settled in Nelson became hard working contributors to the community - shouldn't this be celebrated?
Or is it only those who fought for the right to own human beings as property (and treat them as farm animals) who deserve monuments?