South Carolina, tear down that flag!

[SezMe]

Were those displaying that flag yelling anything? I haven't heard that they were, so I legitimately don't know...

Then you willfully don't want to know. I challenge you to view the video I posted and the white dude acting like a monkey to the blacks....if you can stomach it. Also note the others and what they say. Then come back and express your informed opinion.

 

[SezMe]

You have no clue what many of those folks at that rally are dealing with. In spite of what you say it is NOT all about racism.

I suppose those at the rally had a common view they wanted to express publicly. If you know it wasn't racism, then what was it?

 

[SezMe]

It was simply to counter that ALL people in the South were evil, which had been the primary theme of most comments to that point.

ALL? (Your caps). I'd like you to cite two posts in this thread that claim that ALL the people in the South were evil.

 

[SezMe]

Good form.

Seconded.

 

[Foolmewunz]

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.

My point, which posters who know my body of work will have recognized, is that those are fond memories of growing up in the south. I do not look on the Confederate Battle Flag or Naval Ensign as a fond memory. It has no such pleasant associations for me. If this is all about Heritage Not Hate, then those people should actually learn something about their heritage and find something else to associate with it,... other than the marching standard of various bigoted groups. Like it or not, that flag was co-opted, starting in '48 when Truman desegregated the armed forces.

 

[Aepervius]

Man, have I got a flag for them!

I thought you were joking but it seems to be really used by some of the local white supremacist.

http://us.cnn.com/2015/07/19/us/black-officer-white-supremacist-feat/index.html

Scroll to the photo of the policeman helping the supremacist and look at his t shirt.

While not identical it is similar enough to my flag-untrained eyes. This leaves me without words.

 

[Checkmite]

http://us.cnn.com/2015/07/19/us/black-officer-white-supremacist-feat/index.html

The officer in the photo is Public Safety Director Leroy Smith, Godfrey and a department spokeswoman said.

"He was assisting with crowd control on the stairs where the KKK was rallying," spokeswoman Sherri Iacobelli said.

Smith was helping the man find shelter and water as temperatures soared into the high 90s.

"He had observed that the person appeared to be feeling ill from the heat and needed assistance," Iacobelli said. "He was helping get him up the stairs the statehouse so that he could receive emergency medical care."

A powerful image, and a lesson doomed to be lost on those who would benefit from it the most.

 

[Craig B]

I thought you were joking but it seems to be really used by some of the local white supremacist.

http://us.cnn.com/2015/07/19/us/black-officer-white-supremacist-feat/index.html

Scroll to the photo of the policeman helping the supremacist and look at his t shirt.

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=1258&pictureid=9986[/qimg]

While not identical it is similar enough to my flag-untrained eyes. This leaves me without words.

Given the history of the origin of the saltire, it's very ironic. The saltire was adopted to allay the misgivings of Jews about the use of an upright "Latin" cross, which the first versions of the battle flag displayed!

According to historian John Coski, Miles' design was inspired by one of the many "secessionist flags" flown at the South Carolina secession convention in Charleston of December 1860. That flag was a blue St George's Cross (an upright or Latin cross) on a red field, with 15 white stars on the cross, representing the slaveholding states, and, on the red field, palmetto and crescent symbols. Miles received a variety of feedback on this design, including a critique from Charles Moise, a self-described "Southerner of Jewish persuasion". Moise liked the design, but asked that "the symbol of a particular religion not be made the symbol of the nation". Taking this into account, Miles changed his flag, removing the palmetto and crescent, and substituting a heraldic saltire ("X") for the upright one.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America
The most prominent Jewish politician in the Confederacy was Judah P Benjamin who served both as Secretary for War and Secretary of State.

 

[SezMe]

A powerful image, and a lesson doomed to be lost on those who would benefit from it the most.

Indeed. He was just doing his job but, ya know, he could have just looked the other way. I'd like to shake the man's hand and pay him my respect. I hope his chain of command recognizes his devotion to duty and rewards him appropriately.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Just because some racists murderous jerk bigots hijacks a symbol doesn't mean that all who use that symbol agree with those sentiments, just as the Nazi's hijacked a religious symbol (a very close likeness of it) does not mean that we should obliterate the Swastika because it is a symbol of hatred. It has different meanings and is used as a symbol throughout the world by hindus/buddists and a couple of other lesser known religions. The symbol is not exactly the same, but most would be unable to see the difference as it is a very close likeness.

Stupid Confederacy hijacking the flag for their own racist ends!

 

[ponderingturtle]

I'm wondering if it is a 3rd Reich flag, maybe a naval ensign or something, or if it is some sort of American neo-Nazi invention.

ETA: Called it. German war ensign and naval jack.

http://www.loeser.us/flags/nsdap_military.html#navy

ETA: I just read the caption. Apparently it was used by all Nazi military forces, not just navy. In other words, it's the 3rd Reich Battle Flag.

But what does it mean to the person flying it? How can you make assumptions about what it means to them based on what it means to you?

It could mean anything. I think it represents their love of cheese.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Blues
Jazz
Country Music
Rockabilly
Rock & Roll
Spanish Moss
Magnolias
Paddle Wheelers on the Mississippi
Gospel Choirs
The Second Line (at NOLA jazz funerals)
Swimming in the Gulf - temperature like bathwater
Crayfishing, Crabbing, Catfishing
Sweet Tea
Sitting on the levies watching the river traffic
Proper pulled pork
The Mardi Gras
Sweltering summers when kids weren't just allowed but were expected to go without shirts.
Ceiling fans
The myth of Jean Lafitte
Catching a fish from the Cretaceous (alligator gars)
The absolute disaster a snowfall or freeze could create
Green tomato preserves


I don't need a confederate battle flag to remember any of that.

But a number of those have too much black influence to be truly the south the flag represents.

 

[ponderingturtle]

A Civil War is between factions of the same Country. The Southern States had seceded, so they were not a part of the same Country. They had declared their independence the same way the US did in the Revolutionary War. There was and is no Constitutional reason they couldn't separate. Consequently, Civil War is not a correct even tho' it is most frequently used.

So why would any nation that has areas in rebellion be considered a civil war and not a war between separate nation states?

 

[Craig B]

I'll just add what several others have already said in this thread and expect to be ignored by the know it all PC crowd.

No, I'll have a look at what you add, know it all PC person that I am. Let's proceed.

Just because some racists murderous jerk bigots hijacks a symbol doesn't mean that all who use that symbol agree with those sentiments, just as the Nazi's hijacked a religious symbol (a very close likeness of it) does not mean that we should obliterate the Swastika because it is a symbol of hatred. It has different meanings and is used as a symbol throughout the world by hindus/buddists and a couple of other lesser known religions. The symbol is not exactly the same, but most would be unable to see the difference as it is a very close likeness.

I have a problem with this. The symbols on the Confederate Battle Flag are a saltire decorated with thirteen stars.

Is there anything wrong with saltires? Not as far as I in here in Scotland am concerned. This country's flag is a saltire, and the United Kingdom flag contains saltires representing both Scotland and Ireland. So no problem. Stars? Plenty flags have stars, including those of the USA and N Korea. So all types of polities have stars on their flags. Thirteen stars? Well, the US flag as flown from 1777 to 1795 had that number of stars. No problem there.

The problem is the particular arrangement of saltire and stars, immediately recognisable, which was used by the Confederacy, not saltires and stars in themselves. That is what is objectionable. Same for the swastika. If I see a swastika banner on a Buddhist temple in Nepal, that's not the same thing as the Nazi flag. Is it? Am I saying that all Tibetan Buddhists are Nazi sympathisers? No.

Do I demand that the saltire be no longer displayed in Scotland? No. On the contrary.

 

[Craig B]

So why would any nation that has areas in rebellion be considered a civil war and not a war between separate nation states?

The French call that American war "The War of Secession", and I think that's reasonable. The aim of the Confederacy was to separate itself from the Union. The aim of participants in other Civil Wars is usually, or very often, to change the existing regime in a country while maintaining its unity. Such was the case in seventeenth century England, or twentieth century Spain. If the aim of the rebels is to change the government, that is one situation; if it is to secede and form a new state, that is another.

It would be quite rational for different terms to be used for these different cases.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Why is it supposed to be bad to oppose the government flying a flag of hate? And why do people us the term "PC"? Is "PC" something that bigots invented to argue against the anti-bigotry crowds without having and actual argument?

 

[Meadmaker]

Why is it supposed to be bad to oppose the government flying a flag of hate? And why do people us the term "PC"? Is "PC" something that bigots invented to argue against the anti-bigotry crowds without having and actual argument?

Again, this misses what is actually going on.

Everyone in this thread has said it is appropriate to remove the flag from the South Carolina statehouse. There has been zero dissension on that point.

We are unanimous. Isn't that great? We all agree. You can practically feel the love that comes from all that agreement, can't you?



Or......could it be...........that isn't really the scope of what's happening here?

 

[Meadmaker]

The French call that American war "The War of Secession", and I think that's reasonable. The aim of the Confederacy was to separate itself from the Union. The aim of participants in other Civil Wars is usually, or very often, to change the existing regime in a country while maintaining its unity. Such was the case in seventeenth century England, or twentieth century Spain. If the aim of the rebels is to change the government, that is one situation; if it is to secede and form a new state, that is another.

It would be quite rational for different terms to be used for these different cases.

War of Secession seems appropriate.

However, I wonder what they called it at the time? I know that Lincoln called it a civil war in the Gettysburg Address, and yesterday I read Nathan Bedford Forrest's farewell address to his troops, and he said "civil war" in that address.

When I was a kid, I always heard "Civil War", but southerners would say "war between the States". Somewhere along the line I started hearing "War of Northern Aggression".


Of course, in terms of communication, it doesn't matter one whit. It's all about identifying what team you are on, isn't it? "Our side" calls it XXXXX, "their side" calls it YYYYY. It almost becomes a sort of loyalty oath.

 

[Giordano]

Again, this misses what is actually going on.

Everyone in this thread has said it is appropriate to remove the flag from the South Carolina statehouse. There has been zero dissension on that point.

We are unanimous. Isn't that great? We all agree. You can practically feel the love that comes from all that agreement, can't you?



Or......could it be...........that isn't really the scope of what's happening here?

Don't we also all agree that for First Amendment reasons (at least) no government should ban the display of the Confederate flag by private individuals? That is how I feel, and I can't recall any post that states the opposite.

So we can stop here. Frankly I would like to do so, because I think we have all stated our positions and our rationale for them.

But I think that the "scope" of the discussion has extended beyond the two issues noted above, on which we agree, to whether those flying the Confederate flag are symbolizing racism (whether they intend to or not), or if they are validly symbolizing the non-racist aspects of Southern heritage. There have also been discussion of the numbers of one versus the other: i.e. whether if most of the flag displayers are in the former or latter group.

 

[pgwenthold]

The French call that American war "The War of Secession", and I think that's reasonable. The aim of the Confederacy was to separate itself from the Union. The aim of participants in other Civil Wars is usually, or very often, to change the existing regime in a country while maintaining its unity. Such was the case in seventeenth century England, or twentieth century Spain. If the aim of the rebels is to change the government, that is one situation; if it is to secede and form a new state, that is another.

It would be quite rational for different terms to be used for these different cases.

The question in terms of calling it the war of secession is, what was the objective, particularly of the confederacy?

Specifically, if the confederacy had won, was it their objective to continue to exist as a separate country? Or would they have taken over the union under the control of the Confederacy?

If the latter, then it was a fight for the country. If the former, it was for secession.