Defund 'Money Laundering' Museums, Send Back Artifacts, Archives Useless - Conservative Commentator
Last edited Thu Mar 23, 2023, 09:49 PM - Edit history (1)
- Watch: Candace Owens accuses museums of 'money laundering' and calls for them to be defunded, Alternet, Jan.12, 2023. Ed.
Conservative commentator Candace Owens stated on Thursday's edition of her Daily Wire talk show that she is "anti-museum" & declared that archival institutions serve no useful purpose. "What are your thoughts on the British Museum & other artifacts from other cultures? They have returned many of them to Nigeria. Do you think they should return them?" a viewer identified only as "Jensen" asked Owens. Last Nov., The Guardian reported that the Horniman Museum & Gardens in London surrendered 6 relics that were "looted by British troops 125 years ago from Benin City, in what is now Nigeria, are being repatriated to their place of origin, increasing pressure on the British Museum to following suit.
[Candace Owens defends the Confederate flag & equates slavery with owning yachts].
These types of reconciliations are gradually increasing in frequency. In 2021, Forbes reported that "the push for repatriation of art & artifacts with questionable histories has become more widespread in recent years, which experts attribute to advances in research techniques, a rise in interest in art looted by Nazis during World War II & a renewed focus on the issue of racism & colonialism in the art world after worldwide Black Lives Matter protests kicked off last year." Similarly, in Oct. 2022, Washingtonian highlighted the Smithsonian Institution's efforts to return items in its collection to their rightful cultural homes: The Smithsonian announced in May a new return policy for stolen or otherwise unethically sourced artifacts.
On Oct. 11, the National Gallery of Art (not part of the Smithsonian) & the National Museum of African Art transferred ownership of 30 Benin bronzes in their collections back to the people of Nigeria. In 1897, British troops raided the kingdom of Benin as a punitive response to an earlier attack launched by the king. The troops burned & looted the royal palace, & took stolen treasures back to London to pay for the raid. Over 2,000 bronzes are now in public & private collections all over the world, mostly in the US, the UK, & Germany. Nonetheless, Owens responded to Jensen's question by calling for the elimination of museums across the board.
[Watch: Candace Owens self-rationalizes 'healthy discrimination' against 'men that paint their nails'].
"You know, I actually, kind of, hate a lot of museums because they steal our tax dollars. And so, yeah, defund all of the museums & send back all of the artifacts. The amount of money that was given in the COVID bill, the trillions of dollars, all of it going to, like, the Kennedy Center, the African-American Museum. And what did they do? The people that sit on the boards take all of the money. It's kind of become this huge money laundering operation," Owens said. "And yeah, I say return it all," she added. "If you want to see something, go to the country, you know? So, I'm actually totally fine with that only because I'm very anti-museum because they stole a lot of our money. WATCH,
https://www.mediamatters.org/candace-owens/candace-owens-im-very-anti-museum
https://www.alternet.org/candace-owens-museums-money-laundering/
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* NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION, (NARA), Washington, DC.
- The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an "independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records.
* It is also tasked with increasing public access to those documents which make up the National Archives. NARA is officially responsible for maintaining and publishing the legally authentic and authoritative copies of acts of Congress, presidential directives, and federal regulations.
NARA also transmits votes of the Electoral College to Congress. It also examines Electoral College and constitutional amendment ratification documents for prima facie legal sufficiency and an authenticating signature.
National Archives and Records Administration, NARA, Agency overview, Formed, June 19, 1934; 88 years ago, National Archives Building, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C., U.S. The National Archives, and its publicly exhibited **Charters of Freedom, which include the original United States Declaration of Independence, United States Constitution, United States Bill of Rights, and many other historical documents, is headquartered in the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C.
* The mission of the National Archives is: We drive openness, cultivate public participation, and strengthen our nation’s democracy through equitable public access to high-value government records.
The work of the National Archives is dedicated to 2 main functions: public engagement and federal records and information management. The National Archives administers 15 Presidential Libraries and Museums, a museum in Washington, D.C. that displays the Charters of Freedom, and 15 research facilities across the country. The agency's online catalog makes available over 160 million records ranging from before the start of the republic to the modern government. However, the digitized records represent only a small fraction of the over 13 billion pages in the holdings of the National Archives.
The National Archives governs federal records and information policy for the executive branch and preserves and makes available the records of the judicial and legislative branches. Agencies in the executive branch are required by the Federal Records Act to follow approved records schedules. All records maintained by the executive branch must be properly identified by NARA and authorized for eventual destruction or appraised to be of permanent historical or legal value to be preserved and made available to the public. Only 2 to 3 % of records created by the federal government are deemed to be of permanent value. The Presidential Records Act mandates that all records created by the Executive Office of the President are to be preserved and transferred to the National Archives at the end of a president's administration...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Archives_and_Records_Administration
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