This is a touchy topic. In one of my first posts to the Mudcat I expressed an opinion not very far from the one expressed by Southern Initiative, that the Stars and Bars are a piece of tradition in the South that it's people have every right to display. However, when I see the Confederate flag flowing above a group of Civil War re-enactors my feeling is quite different than when I see it used by Klansmen, skinheads, and other reactionary maniacs who have no clue as to it's historical significance, but see it only as the embodiment of "white power."

Sandy Paton reminded me after that post of mine that while it was true that many brave men had died fighting beneath that flag , one could not ignore the negative symbolism that had come to be attached to it, and that therefore it was unacceptable that it should be flown as a symbol for a government that presumes to represent all of it's people. I suppose that many in the South are like myself- people who can name relatives who were wounded or died in battle fighting for the Confederacy. After all, there were many thousands. Somehow it seems to profane their memory to declare this flag an obscenity. Those of us who had ancestors who were common working people or farmers, people who fought out of a sense of protecting their homes, families, States and not with any desire to protect a slave-holding economy that benefitted them not in the least,we have to face the fact that as those warriors sanctified that flag, the forces of hate that came after have dirtied it, and there is little that can now be done.