195 Comments

Not really. I'm always shocked that upstate New York's Fort Drum - home of the 10th Mountain Infantry (Light) Division - has no strip joints, liquor stores or gun shops surrounding it. Mostly just strip malls with decent (though not great) food and tattoo parlors, fast food joints, rental housing, mid-priced hotels, and what once was one of the largest Wal-Marts in America.

Seriously, unless you knew, you might not even think an Army base is located there.

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Stop exalting dead traitors, it's embarrassing. Or if you're going to insist on lauding traitors, at least pick interesting, effective ones, like Benedict Arnold, or Alger Hiss [citation needed].

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Could not have said it better myself. Fuck Ted Cruz.

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Let it go, Ron. Fuck Ted Cruz.

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Who are they? Fucking losers who think their $8/month tithe to their billionaire hero gives them the duty to be a online shithead to anyone who's opinions they disagree with.

Oh, and bots. Lots of handles with rando collections of letters and numbers making up their Twitler handle often have blue checkmarks as well.

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It's just a big chunk O fat.

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I'm still going on record saying it should have been renamed after General "Jumping Jim" Gavin!

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or Donald Trump.

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For the record, Bragg did not surrender as he retreated from middle Tennessee. He regrouped in northwest Georgia and set several traps for Rosecrans, each of which was bungled by his subordinates until the Battle of Chickamauga (which was won for him by Longstreet and good luck). Then he parked his army on Missionary Ridge, waiting for Grant.

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We should have more bases with names like Fort Dix.Heh heh https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

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Why are there no military bases named for Grant or Sherman?You know, men who were actually really good at their jobs and who won the war?

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People do cling to their place names, and pure racism is often their motivation. Here in Chicago, in the late 30s, Crawford Avenue was renamed Pulaski Road. Clearly this was done as a political bone to throw to Chicago's large and growing Polish population. Some people along the thoroughfare didn't like it -- they didn't want to be living on any Pollack street. So, they brought suit and fought the name change for seventeen years.

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How 'bout Camp Swampy?

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Because it would have made the neo-confederates cry.

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"Between Marx and marzipan in the dictionary There was Mary" A great opening line. A nice love song from a generally surly dude.

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Glad that SER touched on Bragg's shameful past and his abominable record as a general..So, let's recap:

Why naming a military anything after Braxton Bragg is fractally wrong:

1) Basic human morality: Gotta point out that not only was Bragg a big-time slaver, Louisiana sugar plantations were the most brutal and deadly establishments in the entire Southern slavocracy system. Life expectancy was not long, and these plantations needed a constant supply of new slaves...as a general rule, they were selected from the most resisting and rebellious slaves in the entire south, so you can image what overseerers had to do to break them and get enough work out of them before they sickened and died to pay for the expense of their purchase.

2) Treason, obviously.

3) He was an especially shitty commander. It has to be noted that almost all Confederate generals were either pretty damned good or pretty damned bad. Bragg was bad even by the already low standards of the Confederate planter-poiticians who comprised the second group. Even if you don't care about the treason part, why on earth would you want to name such an important base after such an incompetent and defeat-ridden general?

4) Military Honor. In Bragg's case, it was pretty much nonexistent. He continually lied to his superiors and cast blame for his mistakes, his incompetence and his cowardice like a scattergun upon his subordinates and his men. By the time he was chased all the way to Georgia, that outcome was really no longer preventable, and any other general probably would have been retained, because there's no point in blaming a general for not being able to do the impossible. It was Bragg's disgusting lack of anything approaching honesty or honor that ultimately got him shitcanned.

Yeah, some hill to die on, Republicans. But appropriate, I suppose. Braxton Bragg is a fitting avatar for you.

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