You think this only happens in the South? I could see this identical scenario played out in every redneck town across the north and west as well.
It’s not a geographical thing.
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Money is a great motivator, but I sense a sea change in people’s attitudes. These are folks who have no monetary interests at stake. People (not all, of course) are rethinking the flag and what it symbolizes. They’re doing it now in a way that’s never happened before.
Someone on another thread commented that they had a neighbor who had moved their confederate flag from the front yard to the back. That’s a great sea change for some folks.
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Not to beat a dead-horse but when are you guys going to break out that laser and focus on jobs?
Is THIS one of those cemeteries? It SHOULD BE.
http://www.kake.com/home/headlines/Veterans-Memorial-Park-Board-Chairman-Confederate-Flag-should-fly-311876261.html
Please don’t compare the confederate flag to the swastika.
To compare the two lends legitimacy to the confederate flag.
The swastika was the flag of a legitimate government of a legitimate country and was recognized as such by the whole world.
The confederacy was none of these things. Don’t elevate it to the same status as the Third Reich. It was not a country and, legally, never existed.
A better comparison would be to the Cardacision (sp) flag being flown on Deep Space Nine.
This article is incomplete, we should know who voted how, or it comes up short.
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and when they DO display a confederate battle flag in ANY museum it should have THIS prominently displayed right alongside… for purposes of disambiguation.
"The white supremacist who designed the Confederacy’s flag(s), one William T. Thompson, gave the definitive reason why every Republican, KKK member, and so-called Southern heritage advocate still supports flying that symbol of treason and racism.
Thompson was proud to admit that “As a people we are fighting to maintain the heavenly ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause. Such a flag would be a suitable emblem of our young confederacy, and sustained by the brave hearts and strong arms of the south, it would soon take rank among the proudest ensigns of the nations, and be hailed by the civilized world as THE WHITE MAN’S FLAG.”
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sorry, Sherron, but I think we all learned between 2001 and 2008, just because a government is in power does not mean it is “legitimate”. Quite the contrary, I would submit that history is salted peppered with examples of rogue administrations in power, and our 21st Century version is just the latest.
Anyone know if the Vietnames people sell American flags at their war memorials?
Modern racists are working hard to ensure that the CF is reviled as it should have been all along.
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A closer analogy would be to ask if they sell South Vietnamese flags at those memorials.
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And when Lincoln gave his address at Gettysburg, it was at the dedication of Soldiers National Cemetery. Only Union soldiers were allowed to be buried, and thereby honored, at this Cemetery.
Rebel soldiers who died at Gettysburg were hastily buried in shallow graves in farmers’ fields. In 1871 a mass disinterment of these remains began. They were transported to cemeteries in the South.
We’re just going back to what was recognized back in the day. Confederate flags have no place in cemeteries for soldiers who fought for the United States of America. It is not a difficult concept.
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Many conservatives are motivated by things that happen to people they know and care about. Many people who think they are racists find that people of the other race are just people. Probably some people in the South Carolina legislature finally got it.
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I’m from the south too (sadly) and yes, I agree there are a lot of wonderful things and wonderful people in the south. Yesterday, however, somehow my FB feed was inundated with posts about “confederate heritage” and “supporting our flag” nonsense, complete with nasty and offensive comments by many of my friends in support of the south. One even said, 'the south will rise again!"
So today, I’m not feeling particularly charitable about the south or southern culture. This confederate flag business is giving them all another grievance to clutch to their breasts and another reason to hate “libs.”
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If the bigots had not adopted that flag as their codeflag dogfoghorn it would not be so offensive to so many people.
THEY created the evil it stands for, throughout the Civil Rights era, it was not an issue until then, if they had picked any other symbol, we wouldn’t be having this debate.
They are to blame, as usual, for their own undoing… a profound reprise of the Civil War itself.
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Yes, but even if that’s the case for all those commercial interests, why is it that suddenly they see the financial calculus weighing against that flag? It’s all about the sea change in their customers’ perceptions that @Sherron notes.
@RadicalCentrist: There is nothing comparable for the North, of course. It’s a mark of the staggering success of the creators of the myth of the South – the antebellum gentility, the noble “lost cause” – that it actually became, in Americans’ imaginations, a sadly vanished ideal rather than a monstrous system of brutal racial oppression and treason. Check out the onscreen text that opens Gone with the Wind:
“There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind…”
That’s the pernicious revisionist history that the aftermath of the martyrdom of nine profoundly good Americans may finally, finally be letting us put to rest.
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Surprised that the spellchecker didn’t flag it.
True. But the customer perceptions you’re describing are held by outsiders. If their tourist industries and attracting business and conventions would sustain their budget strictly via the patronage of other Southern peoples and entities they’d keep flying the flag. It galls them they have to buckle and bow to pressure from other states or nations. Left to their own devices and without the calculus of economic damage to factor in they’d want the Stars & Bars plastered everywhere there was room to display it. Their atitudes aren’t changing, merely a change of behavior is being forced upon them via economic sanctions. And they hate it. Accuse me of hyperbole, but there is a not insignificant segment of the Southern populace that would still own slaves were they granted the right to do it, and were the slaves available to own.
No disagreement (well, maybe at the margins, wrt some people). Doesn’t change my point.