Discussion for article #237803
About time…no military college in the US should be flying the flag of the armed insurrection against our nation.
10 Likes
“The Board of Visitors and I believe now is the right time to move the flag from a place of worship to an appropriate location,”
The garbage can?
8 Likes
This is all well and good, especially given the history of the Citadel and the reason it came into existence - defend southern whites from slave insurrections.
But I am afraid we are missing the bigger point in all of this. Today, the issue is not so much the Confederate Flag, but the Southern Strategy that utilizing the flag and what it stands for - racism and fear to obtain and maintain political power.
We have one of the two political parties in this Country embracing what that flag stands for as its political strategy by making every substantive issue of the day into a black v. white debate. It is what Republicans do to convince whites to vote against their own interests by appealing to racism to obfuscate from the real issue. Taxes are bad because they benefit blacks, government is bad because it benefits blacks, unions are bad because they have blacks members, immigrants are bad … on and on.
I have seen it first hand, and I don’t live in the South. The Southern Strategy works and that is what we should be talking about now. It is nice that they are coming down, but why were these flags flown on State grounds in the first place? Why did Ronald Reagan announce his presidential run in Philadelphia MS? This is all a well thought out plan.
14 Likes
I must say that that Virgin islands Flag looks WAAAY out of place next to the stars and bars…
1 Like
The Citadel was founded as reaction to the thwarted slave rebellion planned in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church - the very one (not the building) where the recent massacre took place - by Denmark Vesey. The symbolism of this is huge.
7 Likes
Exactly!
1 Like
So… looks like the Lords of Discipline have figured it out. Over to you, Jackson Mississippi.
Also - is there any confederate flag in South Carolina that DOESN’T need the approval of the SC General Assembly to take down? Jeez.
1 Like
“The Board of Visitors and I believe now is the right time to move the flag from a place of worship to an appropriate location,”
Trash heap? Incinerator? Bottom of bird cage?
1 Like
Not quite a compelling case for “local control” beneath the SC Assembly, is it?
1 Like
and another one bites the dust…
Well good for them. I truly believe we are at The Tipping Point of relegating the flag to museums. We need to applaud these moves and reduce or be more careful with the snark.
2 Likes
Racism still exists, even if white people don’t display the Confed flag or use the n-word ever again.
1 Like
True, but if any is entitled to it, it is the Citadel. Citadel cadets fired the first shots of the Civil War when they opened fire on a Union ship entering Charleston’s harbor on January 9, 1861. The “official” beginning of the war wasn’t until April 2, 1861 when shore batteries under the command of General P. G. T. Beauregard opened fire on the Union-held Fort Sumter in the harbor.
South Carolina heritage is a long tradition of bad decisions and errors in judgment, and the Citadel is a big part of it.
The southern states seem to be undergoing a paradigm shift, and not a moment too soon. In the department of unintended consequences, Roof wanted to start a race war, but what he started instead was a war on racism; again, not a moment too soon.
4 Likes
What I find incredibly silly is the fact that they have to “wait” on the legislature to pass a law to get rid of it. How about having some balls and just take down that racist rag down and be done with it. The watershed moment is here and we actually ironically have Dylann Roof to thank because that single action is now about to destroy every argument the south has used to justify their attitude about the treasonous war they started and their “love” of that heritage the flag supposedly represented. The south for all practical purposes regarding the Civil War is dead.
Oh, so basically, the Citadel is part of why the South lost the Civil War…by instilling old time military strategies that had become outdated by that point…
1 Like
No, the South lost the war because they were out-manned and out-gunned. The South had some brilliant military tacticians, but the best of military leadership can’t overcome materiel deficiencies over the long run. The South’s military leaders were one of the reasons that war lasted so long, but basically it was the industrial North against the agrarian South, with most manufactured items being supplied to the South by blockade runners.
1 Like
I was being slightly flippant.
The reality is that, by the time the Civil War came about, the military was moving away from militia-based thinking. Add to that, an incredibly poor infrastructure which could not move materials around effectively, the loss of key ports like Brunswick, GA early in the war, a high desertion rate, a lack of well trained officers, the inability to get raw materials for war…it was a real mess for the South.
To parraphrase what Rhett Butler said in GWTW, the North had industry and armaments and ships to bottle up Southern harbors.
The South had slaves, cotton, and arrogance.