South Carolina, tear down that flag!

[Reheat]

Well, they were "Confederate" for a brief period in the mid-1800s. But on the whole, yes. That's the claim of the flag-wavers... that it's Heritage, Not Hate, after all. My heritage as a southerner has nothing to do with the Confederacy. And that's the point many have been trying to make. There are dozens of things to associate with the Southern USA.

Thanks for a reasonable post for a change. That has been my total and only point in all of my posts. My heritage to the Confederacy is only that I live in a State which was second in the number of battles fought and was for a periods controlled by the alternating sides. Everyone alive at the time was affected, some worse than others. Although I had two ancestors who were in the Confederate Army, I have no special feelings about that except that they were a victim of their time and I would not exist if not for them. Neither of them had slaves.

 

[jimbob]

You did not post a photograph and I missed the part about those jerks driving thru black neighborhoods shouting racist slogans. I wholly agree that is blatant racism and is not to be tolerated.

Except that was pretty much the entirety of your quoted reply:

Today a bunch of those moron jaked up trucks were driving slowly around the 'black' streets, honking their horns and yelling 'white power!'

Yeah, it's not the flag of racists at all...

Gee, I didn't know there was a brush that board even made.

At 9/11 Memorial Services I guess you identify everyone there as a "truther" simply because they are there, right?

 

[Meadmaker]

I think you're confusing the implication of the symbol with what should be done about it. I don't think many, if any, of us here are suggesting that the symbol should be barred from private use, or that people destroy what belongs to them.

But you ignored the actual content of his post. His post was about defacing or removing public monuments, not about the private display of the flag.

There have already been instances of vandalism against public monuments in the last few weeks, and there are calls to remove public monuments. A statue of Robert. E. Lee is not a Confederate flag mounted on a pickup truck. A soldier's grave in Maine is not a KKK rally.

 

[Rare Truth]

Here's a pleasant video of the flag demonstrating Southern Heritage. <--a thousand time over

Yow. Thanks for posting that.

What a buncha...*censored*

 

[jimbob]

I'd guess that a fair number of those are "Southern" as opposed to "Confederate" - is that right?

It is very telling that you don't know.

pgwenthold put it better than me:

And even then, how many of those things you posted can be associated with "Southern USA" as opposed to even more localized regions? A few of them are pretty specific to New Orleans, for example. Or the Missippi river (paddle wheels are pretty characteristic of St Louis, which is not at all "South" and of course wasn't in the confederacy). So that's not a "southern" thing at all, it's a Mississippi river region heritage.

I've said this before, the ONLY thing the confederate states had in common in terms of heritage is slavery.

That was what I was getting at - does Tennessee really have that much more in common culturally with Texas than with Missouri?

 

[Reheat]

Interesting thing I didn't know about Nathan Bedford Forrest

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-a-tures/general-nathan-bedford-fo_b_7734444.html

Summary: He renounced the Klan. His last act as leader of the Klan was to order it disbanded. He changed a lot of his racist beliefs before he died.

Without further research I'm not at all sure that it has ever been proven that Forrest was the originator or even a member of the Klan. I know he's been accused of that, but I was not aware it had ever been proven. I will pursue that historical item and see what I can determine.

The Klan began in response to the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) organization of Union Veterans. That organization was merely a group of veterans who got together and mostly told war stories. They were a philanthropic organization, as well. I'm not at all sure why anyone believed they were a threat to anyone.

http://www.suvcw.org/?page_id=167

It was very similar to the Sons of Confederate Veterans organizations that exist today. They are a philanthropic and historical organization many of whom are also reenactors at those Historical Events. They perpetrate no harm to anyone at all and do not tolerate those who do. Yes, they do use the Battle Flag as a symbol of heritage, not hate and oppose those who do use it as a racist symbol...

 

[Rare Truth]

Without further research I'm not at all sure that it has ever been proven that Forrest was the originator or even a member of the Klan. I know he's been accused of that, but I was not aware it had ever been proven. I will pursue that historical item and see what I can determine.

The Klan began in response to the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) organization of Union Veterans. That organization was merely a group of veterans who got together and mostly told war stories. They were a philanthropic organization, as well. I'm not at all sure why anyone believed they were a threat to anyone.

http://www.suvcw.org/?page_id=167

It was very similar to the Sons of Confederate Veterans organizations that exist today. They are a philanthropic and historical organization many of whom are also reenactors at those Historical Events. They perpetrate no harm to anyone at all and do not tolerate those who do. Yes, they do use the Battle Flag as a symbol of heritage, not hate and oppose those who do use it as a racist symbol...

Oh.
My,
God.

The Klan was a "philanthropic organization."

Holy ****.

 

[Rare Truth]

And yes, it's pretty well determined Nathan Bedford Forrest was a leader in the Klan.

So was his grandson.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AIBAJ&sjid=RwMGAAAAIBAJ&pg=7182,6238795&hl=en

 

[Reheat]

Oh.
My,
God.

The Klan was a "philanthropic organization."

Holy ****.

Can you read? If not, I suggest you learn to do so before commenting.

 

[Reheat]

And yes, it's pretty well determined Nathan Bedford Forrest was a leader in the Klan.

So was his grandson.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AIBAJ&sjid=RwMGAAAAIBAJ&pg=7182,6238795&hl=en

Do you really use Newspaper Articles to historically prove something? Really?

 

[Rare Truth]

Can you read? If not, I suggest you learn to do so before commenting.

After posting that, I went back and reread what you said -- and was about to give you the benefit of the doubt your references were generally about the GAR and SOCV, then I reread it again, and saw the parallel /comparison you made, and rejected that doubt.

My reaction stands.

 

[Rare Truth]

Do you really use Newspaper Articles to historically prove something? Really?

What the hell?

You think the 1922 newspaper article is some kind of fabrication?

 

[Rare Truth]

"Nathan Bedford Forrest II was the grandson of Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest (through his son William Montgomery Forrest), a pioneering leader of the Ku Klux Klan, and father of Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest III.


Forrest is perhaps best known for his tenure as the General Secretary of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and as a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.



Forrest served as Secretary and Business Manager at Lanier University, a college that was sold to the Klan in 1921. Forrest announced that the institution would teach "100% pure Americanism", and that the curriculum would include two mandatory courses for all students: one on the study of the US Constitution and another on Biblical literature."


Nathan Bedford Forrest II


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest_II#cite_note-3

 

[Aepervius]

So the people driving slowly through 'black' neighborhoods with the Confederate flag and yelling, "White power!" weren't racists? What, were they performance artists?

Racists use that flag for their racism, and it is a logically and historically an appropriate symbol of that kind of racism. That's in no way a broad brush. I honestly don't know what you're talking about.

Maybe they were advertizing for clothes bluing product ?

 

[jimbob]

Oh.
My,
God.

The Klan was a "philanthropic organization."

Holy ****.

Can you read? If not, I suggest you learn to do so before commenting.

Maybe you need to write less ambiguously:

Without further research I'm not at all sure that it has ever been proven that Forrest was the originator or even a member of the Klan. I know he's been accused of that, but I was not aware it had ever been proven. I will pursue that historical item and see what I can determine.

The Klan began in response to the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) organization of Union Veterans. That organization was merely a group of veterans who got together and mostly told war stories. They were a philanthropic organization, as well. I'm not at all sure why anyone believed they were a threat to anyone.

http://www.suvcw.org/?page_id=167

It was very similar to the Sons of Confederate Veterans organizations that exist today. They are a philanthropic and historical organization many of whom are also reenactors at those Historical Events. They perpetrate no harm to anyone at all and do not tolerate those who do. Yes, they do use the Battle Flag as a symbol of heritage, not hate and oppose those who do use it as a racist symbol...

 

[Giordano]

I can't read their minds and neither can you. It does not symbolize white supremacy to me at all. I fully realize it has been hijacked by people who do. So, have other symbols, as well. Were those displaying that flag yelling anything? I haven't heard that they were, so I legitimately don't know... BTW, I don't believe it was appropriate either. They could have just as easily displayed sign displaying their displeasure (whatever it specifically was).

Just to re-iterate: no one (except for the claims of certain ISF posters) can read people's minds. Given that limitation, people have invented words and visual symbols to communicate to other people what is on their minds. These only work when the words and symbols have the same meanings to the person receiving these words and visual symbols as the person generating them.

Words and symbols can have multiple meanings, so it the responsibility of the person using these as a form of communication to be certain that they and the recipient share the same meaning. Only in this way can the thoughts of the communicator be accurately understood by the recipient. Therefore the communicator must chose carefully their words and symbols based on a reasonable expectation of the recipient's interpretation, not based on a completely independent. self-centered view by the communicator of what the communicator really intends them to mean.

The ability to find shared meaning in a word or a symbol by both recipient and communicator is based on the historical and current cultural use of that word or symbol. Like it or not, the huge majority of the Confederate flag's historic and current cultural meaning is pro-slavery and pro-segregation. That is how it will be interpreted by the huge majority of the recipients seeing it. I don't blame reheat for the KKK's continued use of this same flag, but this use by the KKK confirms that it is their understanding that the Confederate flag is still a symbol of segregation and "white power." It is the interpretation of the vast majority of Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Jews in both the North and the South, and of most Northerners and many Southerners of any ethnicity. Any other meaning is trivial by comparison, and is not the meaning that most people will receive when the flag is waved, whatever meaning the waver is thinking in their head. .

One last time: if you wish to get across the good that one perceives in the Confederate flag but the vast majority of the world does not, then use a different symbol. It is not the flag waver's choice alone as to what the flag should mean, nor can one simply say that we can't really know what they are intending to say by waving the Confederate flag. The flag is a very well established symbol which will be interpreted by most as celebrating an evil. In many cases, that is exactly what is still intended by many of its advocates. In many ways, this symbolism of evil is more pure for the Confederate flag than many other now-bad symbols: it was created expressly for people to rally to defend slavery and resurrected as a pro-segregation symbol. It has existed for hundreds of years primarily as a symbol of racism. At least the swastika was highjacked from an ancient neutral symbol that originally was not created to communicate support of an evil. People waving the Confederate flag but not intending this meaning is just like people using words that mean the opposite of their true intention; they should not be surprised if people take offense, and rethink the concept if they don't want to offend people.

 

[paulhutch]

Oh.
My,
God.

The Klan was a "philanthropic organization."

Holy ****.

Yeah and he believes slavery wasn't always too bad, after all they were listed in his ancestors bible and buried in the same cemetery.

 

[Reheat]

"Nathan Bedford Forrest II was the grandson of Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest (through his son William Montgomery Forrest), a pioneering leader of the Ku Klux Klan, and father of Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest III.


Forrest is perhaps best known for his tenure as the General Secretary of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and as a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.



Forrest served as Secretary and Business Manager at Lanier University, a college that was sold to the Klan in 1921. Forrest announced that the institution would teach "100% pure Americanism", and that the curriculum would include two mandatory courses for all students: one on the study of the US Constitution and another on Biblical literature."


Nathan Bedford Forrest II


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest_II#cite_note-3

I'm beginning to believe what I said originally when I questioned if you could read. Please tell everyone what Nathan Bedford Forrest II or III has to do with whether or not the original Nathan Bedford Forest who's statue is in Memphis was the originator or even a member of the KKK?

Me thinks you are too quick to condemn someone before you know what you're talking about. Rare Truth indeed!

 

[Reheat]

Yeah and he believes slavery wasn't always too bad, after all they were listed in his ancestors bible and buried in the same cemetery.

Good effort to continue to distort the reason for what I said and what I intended to imply by those comments. Why do you assume I was addressing the Bible or the Cemeteries of my ancestors. I wasn't.

 

[Giordano]

Reheat,

I just read several more of your posts that appear to several people here (including myself) to be arguments that slavery and the KKK were not really as bad as people think. Yet when challenged, you have denied that was your intent, and that we others must have problems in reading skills. I'll accept that you never intended to defend these institutions and organizations, but humbly suggest that this mis-communication only confirms my proposal that, in the absence of us being able to read your mind (the impossibility of which you have emphasized), it is the communicator's (your) responsibility to use the correct words (and symbols) to accurately communicate your thoughts. So far I am willing to conclude that you haven't done so.