REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Lowering the Confederate flag: victory, or ineffectual symbolic act?

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Wednesday, July 8, 2015 09:57
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Saturday, June 27, 2015 11:31 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Tearing Down the Confederate Flag Is Just a Start

Quote:

Suppose African-Americans marked their heritage with flags depicting Nat Turner’s rebellion of 1831, in which slaves massacred about 60 whites before the uprising was crushed? The flag wouldn’t be celebrating the murder of whites, of course, but would simply commemorate a factual milestone in black history!

Suppose Mexican-Americans waved a flag depicting the battle of the Alamo? The point would not be to celebrate the slaughter of Texans, but to express pride in Mexican heritage!

Suppose Canadian-Americans displayed a flag showing the burning of the White House in the War of 1812? Nothing against the Yanks, mind you — just a point of Canadian historical pride!

Suppose American women waved flags of Lorena Bobbitt, who reacted to domestic abuse in 1993 by severing her husband’s penis and throwing it into a field? The aim wouldn’t be to approve of sexual mutilation, of course — but Bobbitt’s subsequent acquittal was a landmark in the recognition of domestic violence!

Well, you get the point. That’s how the Confederate battle flag looked to many of us. And at least Nat Turner was fighting for his own freedom, while the Confederate battle flag was the banner of those who fought freedom, defended slavery, clubbed civil rights workers — and, most recently, murdered black churchgoers. And it’s exhilarating to see the same distaste expressed in the Southern mainstream.

Let's celebrate the drawing down of the Confederate battle flag — and then let's pivot from symbolic moves to substantial ones.

“The Confederate battle flag was the emblem of Jim Crow defiance to the civil rights movement, of the Dixiecrat opposition to integration, and of the domestic terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan,” noted Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention. “White Christians ought to think about what that flag says to our African-American brothers and sisters.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/opinion/tearing-down-the-confederate
-flag-is-just-a-start.html?_r=0




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Saturday, June 27, 2015 1:57 PM

THGRRI


Troll at work above.


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Saturday, June 27, 2015 11:42 PM

JONGSSTRAW


That flag should never have been flown in any govt. facility to begin with. I'm a Civil War buff and have visited more than twenty-five battle sites in seven states. I've never considered the Confederacy or the flag as anything to be proud of.


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Sunday, June 28, 2015 7:29 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


I've always wondered how that flag can actually be officially flown still - other than in re-enactments.

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Monday, June 29, 2015 10:59 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by G:
I wonder sometimes how different the US would be now if they hadn't actually lost.

Now we're talking science-fiction. The Confederates win in "one of the most ingenious parallel world stories ever written", Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_the_Jubilee

American Civil War alternate histories are texts wherein events during the American Civil War occurred differently from those in history. The most common variant of these detail the victory and survival of the Confederate States of America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War_alternate_histories


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, June 29, 2015 12:45 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by G:

Books have to be exciting and fun, so I assume plenty of literary license in those you linked, but in real life we might have ended up pretty close to where we are now - one country but separate.

I've got strong doubts about that. The South would have kept a war going until there was no USA and no Canada.

There is a fancy term, counterfactual thinking, for thinking about what could have happened. The USA is the only big country that did not officially switch to the metric system. It stubbornly stayed with what is workable. The Confederate States of America (CSA) could be the only big country that would never officially give up on slavery, another workable system. If you have heard certain whites in Texas talk in private in this century, it is not hard to imagine slave-holding Southerns in the CSA feeling warm and fuzzy toward slave-holding Nazi Germany.

Think how WWII might have played out differently. The USA actually arrived late for that war, thanks to Southerners and Republicans in Congress. The CSA could have dithered even longer. And who knows which side the CSA would join?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, June 29, 2015 7:10 PM

WHOZIT


It's about time they took it down, it's a loosers flag. Now that many company's have moved to the south they can say THE SOUTH HAS RISEN AGAIN!! SUCK IT NORTH EAST AND CALIFORNIA!! WE WIN!! SHOVE THE STARS AND BARS UP YOUR YANKEE ASSES!!

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Wednesday, July 1, 2015 1:16 PM

OLDGUY

What Would Mal do ?


Love you guys/gals...always enjoy reading your insights..so many of us love our Firefly..and yet we have such differing views.

First - a disclaimer - I was Ohio born and raised but parents were mixed..ie one from Ohio, one from S. Carolina low country.

Second - have done the family treemaker trace just to be sure..and..yep... NONE of my heritage ever owned slaves..in fact..closest we ever came was one great ungle who lived in a house 3 doors down from a black woman who herself was a slave owner...

now that we have the whole "slavery thing" out of the way..
i'll say that the flag issue saddens me..not cause I need to see it flying over a state capital (which it wasn't btw), nor even on a memorial lawn, or on the back of a 4x4 jacked pickup truck..
rather, it's because of the utter ignorance of the mass of folks who have been drawn into this conversation over race and hate..and have overlooked the more insidious effort...that a govt would find ways to rewrite, or even worse, erase history. It's a natural progression when you want to dramatically alter a nation's govt. and break the legs of the foundations of religion, liberty, free speach, etc.
that somehow a memorial flag can cause such total grief, emotional damage, and utter dispair for some people, but i'm not allowed to even comment on my beliefs or see justice served when a pack of "young people" [code word] rampage a store, injur random people, or am physically repulsed at the sight of 2 guys dressed like Tina Turner gettin it on at Disney's It's a Small World?
no..this isn't about racial hatred....it's not about putting the horror of a civil war behind us...it's about something much darker...today they've come for an old relic...a symbol of a time when folks disagreed so severely that we almost destroyed ourselves. That's not something you forget, that's history you should learn from.
I seem to recall a statement made by our liberal Firefly author and fearless leader "might not have been the winning side...not sure it wasn't the right side" Funny how all the rebel scipts made sense when a guy named Bush was in the White house...now we're all "enligtened"


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Wednesday, July 1, 2015 1:17 PM

OLDGUY

What Would Mal do ?


sorry... was quoting from memory... looks like the actual line was :
"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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Wednesday, July 1, 2015 4:36 PM

JONGSSTRAW


Quote:

Originally posted by OLDGUY:
Love you guys/gals...always enjoy reading your insights..so many of us love our Firefly..and yet we have such differing views.

First - a disclaimer - I was Ohio born and raised but parents were mixed..ie one from Ohio, one from S. Carolina low country.

Second - have done the family treemaker trace just to be sure..and..yep... NONE of my heritage ever owned slaves..in fact..closest we ever came was one great ungle who lived in a house 3 doors down from a black woman who herself was a slave owner...

now that we have the whole "slavery thing" out of the way..
i'll say that the flag issue saddens me..not cause I need to see it flying over a state capital (which it wasn't btw), nor even on a memorial lawn, or on the back of a 4x4 jacked pickup truck..
rather, it's because of the utter ignorance of the mass of folks who have been drawn into this conversation over race and hate..and have overlooked the more insidious effort...that a govt would find ways to rewrite, or even worse, erase history. It's a natural progression when you want to dramatically alter a nation's govt. and break the legs of the foundations of religion, liberty, free speach, etc.
that somehow a memorial flag can cause such total grief, emotional damage, and utter dispair for some people, but i'm not allowed to even comment on my beliefs or see justice served when a pack of "young people" [code word] rampage a store, injur random people, or am physically repulsed at the sight of 2 guys dressed like Tina Turner gettin it on at Disney's It's a Small World?
no..this isn't about racial hatred....it's not about putting the horror of a civil war behind us...it's about something much darker...today they've come for an old relic...a symbol of a time when folks disagreed so severely that we almost destroyed ourselves. That's not something you forget, that's history you should learn from.
I seem to recall a statement made by our liberal Firefly author and fearless leader "might not have been the winning side...not sure it wasn't the right side" Funny how all the rebel scipts made sense when a guy named Bush was in the White house...now we're all "enligtened"



No one is trying to erase history. But history, especially a painful symbol of it, doesn't need to be on display in an in-your-face defiant manner proudly flying over state capitals. I never understood the logic of that, or who it was that was meant to be served by it. If someone is horny for the Confederate flag they can play Johnny Reb with their local reenactment friends at one of those ridiculous things that for some reason are held all over the country.

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Wednesday, July 8, 2015 5:19 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


There are those that say the flag represents the fight for states rights and opposition to the Feds telling people what to do. I believe that may be right, but that has little to do with the Civil War, as I understand it.

Regardless of what some southerners state, the flag has come to represent hate and racism, rightly or wrongly, the flag symbolizes something evil and anti-American. Why should it continue to hold a place of honor in a country that values freedom and justice?


SGG


Quote:

Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
That flag should never have been flown in any govt. facility to begin with. I'm a Civil War buff and have visited more than twenty-five battle sites in seven states. I've never considered the Confederacy or the flag as anything to be proud of.



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Wednesday, July 8, 2015 9:57 AM

OLDGUY

What Would Mal do ?


(smiles all around)...
nice response folks...appreciate the insights.

no "self pity" party on my part.. i have never given much thought to whether the flag was on a pole as part of a memorial (not flying over the capital)...
The flag was never an issue for me , I'm sure because i'm just a privileged white guy...
i've seen maybe 15 total minutes of the original Dukes of Hazards series...didn't need to burn any more cycles on that genre either...so don't think this is me wanting to hop in my 4x4 and go down to the state house and get into some protest.
I guess i was trying (poorly) to raise the question of severe double standards and the age-old practice of history being rewritten by the victor..which doesn't necessarily make for historical trutch.

also in reply:
Beck and Rush...yes..we all know who they are....no... I don't have them saved on my old push button radio in my old man car (jeesh..just cause they say it doesn't mean that many others are thinking it for themselves.)

and as to the civil war dress-up...omg!! from this group!?! we'll knock some folks who want to put on real uniforms and reenace historical scenes and times, but we're ok with our Brown Coats and Storm Trooper plastics?

holy crap a Force fart! and I'm chuckling as I write all this cause i never mean for it to come across mean spirited...
couple of my adult kids (yes I really am old) love to do the RenFest thing each year...I support and enjoy and attend with them..
I just was over at the Con Carolina last month (sad turnout frankly) but my business was there doing...well...business...so i got to people watch

one of my daughters has serious plans for costume for the next Dragon

so if i saw some historical re-enactments.. I'd be as curious about those...and finally...placing this whole thing on some stupid screwed up punk crazy kid? in what other social climate do we allow the acts of one person to dictate policy? I'll pass the keyboard to the more accurate historians..but my presumption is that there were 10s of thousands of soldiers who were actually conscripted by their southern state...not to mention volunteers...there were actual paychecks, actual medals and awards presented, actual battles fought for real issues that had nothing to do with slavery..but one sick kid's horrific actions are now supposed to make us throw those medals in the trash can? no.. I'm not running far down the rabbit trail on this... my question all along is, where does it stop...they've come for the battle flag today..they came for a bakery cake yesterday...funny how in some cases...you MUST obey federal laws or loose everything...but apparently it's ok now to ignore those same laws if you want your community to smoke pot or setup safe zones for illegal alien repeat criminals...
ok...rant complete..exit when ready...

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