Wisconsin crowd pulls down statue of abolitionist who died fighting slavery
Source: The Associated Press
Crowds outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison tore down two statues and attacked a state senator amid protests following the arrest of a Black man who shouted at restaurant customers through a megaphone while carrying a baseball bat.
Video released by the Madison Police Department shows the man talking through the megaphone Tuesday while walking around the restaurant’s outdoor patio. He goes inside and paces through the restaurant with the bat on his shoulder, saying he’s “disturbing” the restaurant and talking about God and the police before walking out.
As many as five officers can be seen taking the man to the sidewalk and carrying him to a police squad car after he initially resisted arrest.
The unrest followed weeks of mostly peaceful protests of the death of George Floyd, who died on May 25 in Minneapolis after a white police officer used his knee to pin down the handcuffed Black man’s neck even after Floyd stopped moving.
Statues of Wisconsin’s motto “Forward” and of Col. Hans Christian Heg were dragged away from the statehouse. The statue of Heg, an anti-slavery activist who fought and died for the Union during the U.S. Civil War, was decapitated and thrown into a Madison lake by protesters, the newspaper said.
Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/7101452/madison-wisconsin-hans-christian-heg/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Pulling down the statues of abolitionists over the arrest of a man who was more than likely deranged and a threat to others including himself. We're rapidly approaching the singularity of these guys.....
And just like them, we had an extremely good point originally, but then things just spun out of control. People being people. Like moths to a flame, we just can't keep away from the extremes.
I know Madison is a liberal college town, but ...
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Sigh.
From what I understand, many instances of violence during the protests have seemingly not even been started by protestors, but by "provocateurs"*, could the "provocateurs" be doing this too? Even the other story about the congressman getting assaulted for just taking a picture, does not seem like anything the protestors have been doing either.
I am definitely biased and no doubt hope people would not be so short sighted as to do this, but from the little I have read about it, it does not seem outside the realm of possibility that this would be something the "provocateurs" / RWNJ's would do. 
FDT
*and in my opinion the police!
to intelligently speak on Heg's treatment of Native Americans. I imagine given how Native Americans are treated today and my understanding to how this country became this country, I am sure Heg did not treat Native Americans with the decency every human would generally deserve. From what my "Google" skills can gather, between 2000 and 2019 there were not many articles that mentioned Heg's "hatred" for Native Americans or his terrible treatment of them, beyond as you mention, his association with the 49ers and the battles between them and the Norwegian settlers. As "popular" history is often only communicated by those in power, I am confident that his treatment of Native Americans could have been way worse than my "Google" skills uncovered. Also, admittedly this is the first time I have actually thought about the "49ers" being in the same category as for instance the "Redskins", and how the glorification of these must feel to Native Americans. So many things to fix!
So, maybe his statue shouldn't be there, I mean this country was not "discovered" it was stolen from the Native Americans, and that theft should not be celebrated falsely, whether it be on October 12th of each year, with statues of larcenists, or for that matter the last Thursday in November each year either. I will however make this, in my opinion, VERY BIG distinction between statues to people like Heg and confederate statues, it seems to me that the intent of statues like Heg's was to celebrate him as an abolitionist who died trying to end slavery, while the confederate statues were literally strategically put in place to continue the white supremacist agenda and be a reminder to blacks that they would never be equal in the eyes of those who erected those vile pieces of shit. To me intent does matter, symbolism does matter. In all fairness, I now ask myself what does Heg symbolize to Native Americans though?
So if it was actual protestors, it seems the removal of Heg's statue is not so clear cut, to me it still does seem short sighted and honesty counter-productive, given the current climate and direction of things, to choose this as the hill to die on.
And I also could still see it being at least motivated, if not executed, by the same group of Assholes/Provocateurs who started many instances of violence at other protests or even possibly done by the group of "Bitch Bois" who are seemingly in that vicinity and doing things like this -
[link:https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime-and-courts/madison-police-investigating-possible-hate-crime-after-woman-reports-being-burned-by-lighter-fluid/article_6e44415c-2e36-5b40-b813-89ee05eeed3e.html|
Thanks for your post -
Be good -
FDT
