There's a lot more than symbolism. But okay, let's talk symbolism.

Having marched in the 60s (and my Bernie-clone journalist-father sided early with MLK) and having mourned both King & Bobby, I know tense times can push radicalization that ranges from overdue ferocity (#MeToo and BLM and toppling confed statues) all the way to over-wrought and unhelpful shrieks, or even enemy agitprop. Time tells the difference, of course, and often I've needed to change where I drew those lines, for example when I revised my opinion of Malcolm X. (Let's have some fun and put him on Lee's pedestal!) 

Alas, I will get dissed for even raising the fact that this spectrum -- ranging from long-overdue fury and fed-up activism to unhelpful radical preening*, to falling for KGB/KKK agitprop lures -- even exists. Those applying purity tests (that they conveniently get to rule-upon) won't accept me as an ally, however hard or long or effectively I have fought for the Great Experiment. (Far more effectively than most of those radical judges.) 

Still, I'd rank Cortez and Pizarro and Jackson and Sheridan higher, as murderous white oppressors of indigenous peoples, than the Italian explorer Columbus, who arguably did little more than slightly accelerate an an inevitable contact that others botched into holocaust.

As for Churchill, whose statue is now under attack? Was he a man of his times who said things cringeworthy by later standards? Absolutely. Though Gandhi also freely admitted that his guilt-tripping tactics could only sway the public conscience of a British public that HAD a conscience, and that most empires - especially those of Hitler or Stalin - would simply have rubbed him out, with a shrug.

Only fools ignore how crucial Churchill was - for all his faults - at unifying resistance to those vastly more-evil empires. Can you truly claim to be anti-nazi while howling at the one person who most-consistently and effectively thwarted Hitler's mad dreams?

Elsewhere I quote Fredrick Douglass's eulogy of Abraham Lincoln (look it up!) where he avows that he spent years frustrated with Lincoln's seemingly tepid abolitionism... till he realized that there could have been no ally better suited and positioned to steer a path through perilous times and bring the needed change.

When judging historical figures, one test stands above all others. Did he or she strive to move the needle forward? Were they substantially better than those they led and better than their times? By that standard, Jefferson and Washington led, even in the cautionary tale of their self-admitted hypocrisies, but especially in setting momentum to a ponderously too-slow but inexorable arc of history and justice that, for all its frustrating faults, shines brightly against all the rest of the last 10,000 wretched years. A momentum that today's activists replicate, reinforce and re-invigorate.

Gene Roddenberry put women crew in miniskirts and made Uhura a receptionist, and we had to wait a long time for Sisko. So was GR a sexist-racist pig? Or was he the fellow who lifted our gaze from a morass of sci fi dystopias to imagine a better future of justice and peace, when all of these issues will be viewed in retrospect as the weird reflexes of frightened caveman ancestors? See what MLK said about Star Trek, before you blurt a reflex answer.

We're now in the fight of our lifetimes to preserve that Experiment. To prove that government of, for and by the people shall not perish from the Earth. Some would split our coalition with obsessive symbolism attacks aimed not at redressing injustice, but preening a high virtue-classification for themselves, while offending the very public whose support we need, right now. 

I draw that line between confederate statues (boo!) and taking Jackson off the $20 bill and painting BLM on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of Trump's stolen house (choice!), on the one hand - and Churchill and Washington on the other. 

But I HAVE BEEN WRONG BEFORE. I'll even listen.

Will you? 

== Beware of allies who would weaken us ==

* Again this is about splitterism. Shall we seek a broad Union Coalition to win this Phase Eight of the American Civil War? Or take pleasure in offending the very allies that we need?

Because if we don't win it crushingly at the ballot box in November, we may be forced into a much worse Phase Nine. Take a hint from the recent "Generals' Revolt." We need allies now, more than ever.

I arm you here with all you need, in order to quash those splitter mantras. Get to know these facts, so you can show the splitters they are factually wrong, in almost every respect! And yes, there's much more in Polemical Judo.

== It's the cop unions, stupid ==

I predicted in The Transparent Society (1997) that cop-cams and bystander video recordings would hold police accountable… though perhaps in grudging increments. Even earlier, in my novel Earth (1991) I talked about how there would be *fewer* police in a future when all citizens can record whatever they see with their eyes… when most kinds of violent street crime largely vanish because it is always caught. (The Seattle experiment could preview this result… at least during its zealous “co-op” phase.)

That - of course - is how to “defund the police”… by reducing our need for them, plus ensuring that only grownups get on the force, because cameras catch imbeciles like these Chicago fools lunging in a congressman’s office while their city was being looted.

Cop unions around the country must decide - right now - whether they are here to protect the assholes, or to protect good cops from the assholes. There is no longer any middle ground, and the "good majority" needs to say so.

== Late notes ==

Vote Veterans pushes candidates for office who have served. Yes, most are Democrats. That’s a trend based on a lot of things, including the devolution of the Republican Party into fact-hating virulence and madness. So these folks are stepping up to defend America again.  Oh, I wouldn’t mind a bit if Joe chose Tammy Duckworth. Look her up.

Six former confederate states plus (you’d guess) Indiana use age as an excuse to limit use of absentee ballots, violating (as asserted by Equal Citizen) the 26th Amendment.

Finally... Borowitz is a national treasure!