Rebel Flag meaning

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Lighter
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 01:58 PM

Because the Confederacy virtually defined itself by its slave-based economy and the Union didn't. All states North of the Ohio and north of the Mason-Dixon Line had individually legislated emancipation by 1804. Furthermore, while the Confederacy was frankly proud of its slave economy and went through all sorts of ethical contortions to show that it benefited the slaves, slavery in the Union as whole had grown insidiously and opportunistically. Its only theoretical "justification" was that the Bible didn't condemn it. Despite the nearly universal white racism of the period, Northern state governments were not "proud" of the institution and certainly did not define themselves by it.

When the question came up of extending slavery beyond the Mississippi, the Northern states opposed it but were forced into various compromises.

And of course it was the Union itself that ended slavery by defeating the Confederacy. Which makes up for a lot, even if abolition was not originally a Federal demand.

Chattel slavery is thus a weightier "ingredient" in the Confederate flag than in the U.S. flag. (Not to mention that the current U.S. flag is not identical to the flag of 1776: many more stars for more states, in the majority of which slavery has never existed.)

Of course when you're talking about the "real meaning" of conventional symbols, logic is never a complete guide. See my previous post.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Stringsinger
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 02:21 PM

1. The Confederate battle flag is the same for black people as the Nazi swastika is
       for Jewish People.
2.   Many of the Reenactment groups here in the South get their history wrong.
3.   It became an Alabama state flag symbol under George Wallace, a staunch segregationist
      in 1954.
4.   The Southern soldiers did not believe in integration of the races. They were bigots.
5.   "State's Rights" has been a euphemism for segregation.
6.    The flying of the Confederate battle flag is tantamount historically to treason.

Let's put this BS about the battle flag being something it isn't to rest.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: artbrooks
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 03:14 PM

Well, Stringslinger, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. However, most of your points, while entirely valid, are the result of historical revisionism. History is not black and white, especially where people have made a conscious effort to change the facts over the course of a century and a half. For example, both the Union and Confederate armies included Black soldiers, albeit many more in the North. There were a number of free Black slaveholders, especially in Louisiana and Texas.   To say that The Southern soldiers did not believe in integration of the races. They were bigots. is to imply that Northern soldiers did believe in integration and were not bigots, which are hardly true.   Lynchings of Black citizens occurred in the North as well as in the South (although in much smaller numbers).

My question stands: if the descendants of Southern soldiers wish to honor the memories of their ancestors, and they may not use the Confederate battle flag to do so, what may they use? Or is it your contention that none of these people had any honor and that they should be forgotten? Should the real bigots who have tried for well over a century to hold people back from their legal and moral entitlements be allowed to continue to foul a once-honored symbol?

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: mg
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 03:43 PM

I think some would say not just forgotten but while you are at it go on their grave and stomp on it. mg

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 03:59 PM

It was the battle flag for the Army of Tennessee and the Army of Northern Virginia, which were the two principle Confederate Military forces, so it didn't gain attention only because of use after the war by racists or segregationists.
It was conceived as a flag that could easily be distinguished from the Union flag, and also because its similarity to the Union Jack might encourage recognition of the CSA by Britain.
Brave men fought and died under the banner, including thousands at Gettysburg, Antietam, and Chickamauga. To say that these men died for racism is a gross oversimplification made by some who neither understand the diverse causes of the American Civil War, nor understand the motivations of the millions of who fought under the banner.
Cowards, psychotics, and racists have used the banner as a symbol for their causes. So have they used the swastika, the Union Jack, the hammer and sickle, and the American Flag. I concede that the use of the Confederate Battle flag has come to be closely and specifically associated with racism. For this reason I can't countenance flying it. But to condemn this flag as inherently evil and racist is an action with which I cannot agree.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 04:39 PM

I've got a photo somewhere of a Country Music stall at North Weald Market a few miles from Harlow, but I haven't been able to find it. It's got four flags - a Confederate Flag, the Stars and Stripes, a Union Jack and an Irish Tricolour. All basically saying one thing - "music".

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 05:17 PM

Ya' know, there are plenty of learned historians who talk about the various battles and staegies... There are "round table discussion"... I know alot of those folks, too... They don't display the Confederate flags on their cars or stick them out in front of their houses... Rednecks do... I live with them... If folks think the "n word" is a thing of the past then come stay in Page County< Va. for awile... Or even Jefferson or Berkley Counties in West Virginia... These people couldn't tell you what the Civil War was about qand most couldn't name 10 battles but they sho nuff got them falgs a'flyin'...

Makes me want to puke... Heritage, my butt... Rednecks... And I can say rednecks because I live in the middle of them... Ain't like I'm on the outside lookin' in...

B~

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: gnu
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 05:23 PM

Hmmmm... food for tought, indeed. Thanks, all, for the edification. It really is a complex set of circumstances.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 05:32 PM

And here I thought West By-God Virginia was a Union state, Bobert!

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Peace
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 05:33 PM

"Patriots shout promises and fools salute a flag
While the country which it represents is torn apart like rags . . ."

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: mg
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 05:51 PM

Fools may salute a flag, but fools also will insult the flag of others, including their enemies, or those they just happen to scorn..including people who have done bad crimes to humanity..but the wiser ones will find a way to separate the bad from the other. mg

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 06:31 PM

I have the impression that just the same kind of people who might wave the Confederate flag as a mark of their racism might also be found waving the Stars and Stripes for the same reason. Or the Union Jack. Or a whole lot of other flags.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Peace
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 06:35 PM

mg: you are NOT the only person here to have served his/her country. And you do NOT define patriotism simply because you have served. It's your opinion. Period. Many others have their own opinions. I'm one of 'em.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 06:54 PM

Ya' know Peace, that sounds like a song by some fella' name of Murdoch.....kind of a folksinger type way back in the '60's..............

Spaw

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Peace
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 06:59 PM

As a btw, the song fragment I quoted is one I wrote about Canada. People were trumpeting the glories of this country while flags were used to rip the place apart. I happen to agree that people will 'take what they want' from symbols. Flags are but one of those symbols. All too often people wrap themselves in it and go forth perceiving that because their flag is at the forefront of the latest charge that things are ipso facto right with the world. Much too often and much too freguently that is another way for rich folks to send poor folks kids off to wars that mean bugger all because they never meant a damned thing to begin with. Just some armaments manufacturer's way of making a buck.

We know today that WWI was a useless cause. So too was Vietnam, imo. I do NOT from that deduce that the soldiers who went were malicious, evil people. I will follow MY flag when it is right to do so. IMO, what makes me a patriot is doing just that. And if the day comes that I refuse, I will go to jail. I will support my country when it is right, not just because it is 'right' to support my country. If I misunderstood the slant of your post, my apologies.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 07:05 PM

This is just one of those issues that pushes emotional hot buttons for people. Sandy Paton once told me I was full of crap on this topic, and Sandy was about as easy going as they come. It's kind of like gun control, abortion, and harp seal harvesting...everyone who has an opinion has a very strong one.
I have ancestors who fought on both sides of the Civil war, and I'm sure they endured pain, hardship, and months and years away from their homes and families. They were mainly Kentucky farmers who held a little hard-scrabble property and no slaves. Some never went home. I suppose that when I see that flag, I don't just think of slavery, or the KKK, or Lester Maddox. I think of them, too.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Peace
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 07:10 PM

Thanks for a level head, LEJ.

Sorry, Mary.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 06:10 AM

'Sandy Paton once told me I was full of crap on this topic, and Sandy was about as easy going as they come' wrote LonesomeEJ above.

Not always he wasn't. I'll never forget being in a London coffee bar with Sandy & Redd Sullivan & some others 50+ years ago. Sandy was holding forth about "no racism in folksong; you'll never hear the word {Look away, Azizi!} 'nigger' in a true traditional folksong". So I sang the first verse of Johnny Come Down To Hilo: "Did you ever hear the like since you was born, When a big buck nigger with his seaboots on Sings Johnny Come Down To Hilo? Poor old man". - "That's right," said Redd, a professional merchant seaman as well as a distinguished folksinger; "and that's how seamen sing it too."

But Sandy asserted that it wasn't a 'true traditional version', whatever TF he meant by that; couldn't possibly be, by a question-begging circular-argument=back-to-where-we-came-in assertion: & just wouldn't be told. Easygoing? Not always where he felt strongly: like most of us, I suppose.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: greg stephens
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 06:27 AM

The obsession with flag-waving(or the obsession with not flag waving, which is the same thing) seems a bit scary. I'm with McGrath on this, it is perfectly blindingly obvious that there are people displaying this flag who aren't racist bigots. So to call them such sems to be needlessly trying to raise ordinary discussion into fighting talk.
Statement: some people displaying the Confedarate flag are racist bigots. Obviously true.
Statement: all people displaying Confedarate flags are racist bigots. Obvious baloney.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Azizi
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 07:21 AM

I'm posting these comments in this public thread instead of in a private message to MtheGM because I'm writing them for him and for others besides him.

I believe you mean well, but please don't post comments such as "Look away, Azizi!" when using that racial slur. Also please don't post comments such as "I wonder what Azizi thinks about this" as has also been done when talking about racism or the use of that word.

It is difficult enough being the only self-described Person of Color who regularly posts on Mudcat without such comments.

I have looked racism in the eye many times, and I will comment about racism on Mudcat threads when I chose to. Your writing "Look away, Azizi" does not mean that I'll look away and doesn't mean that I won't still cringe when I read that "n word". Many-but not all- Black people and other People of Color have said & have written that that slur is offensive and makes us cringe when we hear or read it, regardless of the race/ethncicity of the person/s using it.

However, I would hope that it is not just People of Color who consider that word to be offensive. And I hope that it's not just People of Color who recognize that working for a time when race is just a valueless descriptor benefits us all.

Mudcat would be a richer forum if there were more members who are People of Color and Mudcat would be a richer forum if those persons who publicly acknowledged their racial identity at least some of the time. In my opinion, comments such as yours, Michael, no matter how well meaning they are, help make this forum less attractive to Black people and to other People of Color.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 08:19 AM

To say that The Southern soldiers did not believe in integration of the races. They were bigots. is to imply that Northern soldiers did believe in integration and were not bigots...

It is simply stating a fact. It does not imply anything whatsoever; tho I suppose that it may be perceived to imply something by neo-Confederate apologists...

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 08:57 AM

Yer right, EJ...

Wes Ginny was a Union State... Further evidence that the Confederate flag has nothin' to do with "heritage"...

Soon as you enter Wes Ginny on Rt. 9 from Virginia there's a house on the left side of the road that has for years displayed not one, but two big Confederate flags... Confederate flag decals adorn the rear windows of easily half the pick-up trucks... Round these pasrts of Virginia, it isn't as bad... Bad, but not as bad as Jeffereson County, WV...

The point I was making is that, yeah, there are a lot of folks who are historians who gather to talk battles and troop movements and all that military stuff... Hey, I can understand that... My brother-in-law is one... He can tell you every battle in the Civil (which it wasn't) War, owns several period rifles, reads all the books but this man would never, ever stick a Confederate flag on his car or out in front of his house...

I think it would be very interesting to round up about 10 random flag wavers/displayers and sit them down in front of a camera and have them explain "their heritage" in terms of family members who had died at various battles... Or battles themselves... Or really anything that has to do with history... I think if that were to happen and have it filmed and broadcast it would be very interesting... Face it, these are just angry rednecks with no particular interest in either their heritage or history...

B~

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Lighter
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 10:01 AM

Maybe thirty years ago it wasn't unusual for Southern high-school marching bands to carry the Confederate flag along with the U.S. flag and their state flag. Sometimes they would play "Dixie" as one of their brass band favorites.   

I don't know just when the practice became common or what the ultimate "message" behind it was supposed to be. It made Yankees like me, who'd seen the flag in modern times mainly in pix of KKK rallies, kind of uncomfortable. It must have made African Americans even more uncomfortable, no matter how it may have been rationalized.

When I mentioned the likely offensiveness of the flag to a couple of intelligent, liberal (white) friends, they were surprised nad said, "It's just the flag of the South." They'd grown up seeing it and it never registered beyond that. They understood my point but thought it was exaggerated. They were not racists and the flag didn't "stand for" racism to them.

On the other hand, they weren't flying one themselves. And it was a long, long time ago.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: M.Ted
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 11:49 AM

In the fifties, and even into the sixties, it wasn't uncommon to hear "Dixie"--we sang it in school, in fact, but when the non-violent civil rights marches began, the segregationists began a vicious, angry, and violent response, which included prominent displays of that flag--

For those who have forgotten, the segregationists weren't just "Whistlin' Dixie"--there were murders, cross burnings, church bombings, nightsticks, firehoses and police dogs--and that flag was a short-hand message, "Don't mess with us, or else"--as explained above, they considered integration to be "messing" with them-

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 12:37 PM

My experience in the UK is that it's only used a symbol of enthusiasm for the music and culture of the American South - Elvis, bluegrass, C&W. As such it's pretty harmless. The commonest place you'll find it is in the windows of shops selling rhinestone boots. I've never seen it used by fascists (the commonest flags they use are the Cross of St George and the Union Jack).

Whereas I can't imagine any circumstances in which somebody could display the US flag without it being propaganda for indiscriminate state violence.

I'll take Dolly Parton fandom over the prats who fetishize "our troops" any day.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 01:19 PM

Well, Jack, if folks in the UK were to educate themselves about what the flag actually represents they might be inclined to find another symbol to indicate their enthusiasm, rhinestone boots notwithstanding.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 01:28 PM

Things represent what the people using them intend them to represent. That doesn't mean that at times it might not be wise, when you us a flag etc, to take into account what other people might see it as representing, but it is also wise to hold off from from making assumptions about what people might intend when they use such a symbol.

Most people displaying the Skull and Crossbones are not actually pirates. Most people wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt are not revolutionaries.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Big Mick
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 01:50 PM

I have been busy since my post, and have just read through this. My comments:

Susan, you have a well established habit of trying to shift the premise when you are not sure how to answer. Your response to this was a grand example. You attempt to move to my "style", appearing a wise and gentle counselor, instead of responding to the post. It is patronizing and insulting. Deal with the issue and let me seek therapy for my well intentioned, but misguided ways, OK?

I have heard many comments about the motives of the Confederate soldiers, and the historical facts of the flag. All of them are correct, and as a person who has a bit of knowledge on the topic of armed combatants, I do not doubt any of it. But the initial question never introduced those subjects. What it asked was, "What is the meaning of the Confederate flag these days?......What does it mean to you? Is it a harmless symbol of rebelion? Is it a racist symbol? Is it just a fad? In that context, and IMO, with very few exceptions, it is the symbol of those that decry the civil rights movement. It is almost exclusively used (outside the re-enactor movement) by those who adopt a segrationist and/or and outright white supremacist viewpoint.

I am with Stringsinger on this. The use of this flag says to African Americans, Hispanics, and others of colour, as well as to white folks committed to the struggle for equality, the same type of message that one would get waving a swastika at Jewish folks. All of the rhetoric about its history is interesting and genuinely offered, but it simply cannot be allowed to somehow make this symbol of hate something other than what it is.

Just my tuppence worth,

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Stringsinger
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 02:24 PM

Mick is correct. Follow the history.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 03:46 PM

I do not believe we in the UK have anything at all to learn from Americans about what that flag signifies. We have our own set of significations for it, which are not yours and which are almost entirely innocuous. If we were to start taking it as seriously as you do, we would simply be handing a weapon to the fascists - they can't now use it as a triumphalist symbol, but if it were made as problematic as it is to people like Stringsinger, they could.

The situation with the Union Jack is almost exactly parallel. In the US, it has no very evil connotations. In Britain, it is almost never used by private citizens except as a fascist emblem, and non-white people in Britain have every reason to react to it as Jews do the swastika - it stands for being spat on and beaten in the street, gang attacks and firebombs. So should we demand that Americans stop it being displayed in public over there? No way. Make a big deal of it, and it would simply provide one more emblem for the American racist right to use, and for their victims to be afraid of.

The most freaked-out I've ever seen anyone get over a symbol display was a friend of mine when we'd climbed to the top of a Scottish mountain. One of the other walkers at the top had a t-shirt from some organization like Greenpeace, with a tree on it. She was terrified it was a cedar. For her, the cedar symbol meant the Falangist militia in Lebanon, the guys behind the Sabra and Shatila massacres, and the fear had followed her right across Europe and to the top of a hill 2000 miles away on a bright summer day. So, do we ban people wearing emblems of trees, anywhere? (She wouldn't argue that herself).

We've trivialized the Confederate flag to death. Dead is good.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: romanyman
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 04:49 PM

Why oh why does everything have to have a reason. What would be said if i was to wave my romany flag about, or sing some of the original romany songs, many of them are anti settled folk, is that racist, as a minority in my own country, i suppose it is.
Many people wouldnt even know the romany flag if they saw it, how long before some one says some thing about it to suit themselves.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 06:37 PM

The Cedar symbol as such is used on the Lebanese national flag - here.   The Phalangists use a re-designed version of it - here

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 07:22 PM

You accidently hit "V" instead of ctrl-v for paste, Kevin. Can you re-do that kink?

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 28 Oct 09 - 11:23 AM

I do not believe we in the UK have anything at all to learn from Americans about what that flag signifies.

Excuse me??? "I reject objective reality, and substitute my own version".

Hey, make up & believe whatever bullshit you want, mate.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Gervase
Date: 28 Oct 09 - 12:49 PM

In Britain, it is almost never used by private citizens except as a fascist emblem, and non-white people in Britain have every reason to react to it as Jews do the swastika - it stands for being spat on and beaten in the street, gang attacks and firebombs.
Fascist like the new Mini, the dresses the Spice Girls wore, the Last Night of the Proms, the flag that Lewis Hamilton and Amir Khan draped around their shoulders...?
Maybe for a while in the Seventies and early Eighties the Union flag was hijacked by the NF and other Far Right organisations, but I don't think it's got that connotation now.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 06:46 AM

I have a Romany flag decal on the headstock of my guitar... it's the only flag that will grace that axe... earth, sky and a wheel in between
no stars, no country.... Yanko gave it to me.... there's a great picture of him in his younger days carrying it to the UN with Yul Brynner holding the charter when they were trying for NGO status for the Roma...

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: GUEST,bankley
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 06:47 AM

that was me

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 07:44 AM

Sorry - Lebanese national flag

Falangist logo

And, to show it's not just fascists use the cedar image, the Lebanese Communist Party flag.

And I'm not suggesting that Jack Campin's friend wasn't quite understandibly freaked out by the cedar tree symbol - but I thought it as well to set the record straight, in case anybody misunderstood its normal significance on a Lebanese flag they might encounter, say on some demo.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: John P
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 10:49 AM

Will someone who thinks the Confederate flag is a harmless symbol of history please respond to the comment that waving the flag at a black person is very much like waving a Nazi flag at a Jew?

Like I said earlier, everyone I've ever talked to (admittedly not many) who was displaying the flag was a racist. And every black person I've talked to sees it as a gross insult.

And the other question: Why would anyone display a flag that they know (or should know) is seen as a racist symbol by lots of folks?

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 11:01 AM

Wordless symbols mean whatever people think they mean. If your interpretation is different from most, watch out.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: artbrooks
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 01:23 PM

I don't think that anyone here has said that "the Confederate flag is a harmless symbol of history". Rather, I (and others) have said that it is unfortunate that, in the century and a half after the American Civil War, it has been co-opted by racists and bigots as their symbol, leaving those who wish to commemorate the individual valor of Southern soldiers with nothing.   I am, by the way, neither a "neo-Confederate apologist" (whatever that is) nor personally interested in commemorating the Confederacy in any way.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 01:27 PM

Fair post, as usual, from Art. My point, once again, goes to the central question posed in this thread. That is, what has it become today?

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: mg
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 01:50 PM

1. I do not believe the Confederate flag is a harmless symbol. No flag is. Wave the Danish flag in an intimidating way, perhaps in Galway, as if to say we got you once and we will get you again, and that is intimidating. Most people would find the Danish flag to be non-intimidating. Waving the flag at a particular person is an act of intimidation at times. I think a better analogy would be waving the German flag at someone in a hostile way. The Nazi flag should be banned forever, as should the Nazi salute, which a version of was done in my church until recently, calling it a blessing. I would point out to them that the blessing was identical in appearance to the Nazi salute but they went by intention more than obviously what it looked like..but I think they were dead wrong to permit this. Germans did some horrible things in WWII..but not all of them, and I would permit the German flag to be flown and put on graves etc. It is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, the baby from the bathwater more often than not..to separate people who loved their farms and mountains and fellow countrymen and those who did awful things..and the two groups could be composed of the exact same people.

2. As I said before, I would not permit the Confederate flag to be flown on public lands..with the exception of small ones on the graves of the fallen. It is the least we can do. The flag has multiple meanings and symbolism. There is a lot of gray area..perhaps there should be a permit as to where it can be flown..I think on Memorial Day, which was spread by the ladies of the post-Confederacy honoring all the fallen, North and South.

The bitterness and anger that is behind the use of the Confederate flag is often against the Yankees..or some would say the Damn Yankees. There were terrible abuses in the war and in reconstruction, and an abused people do not easily forget. How we treat our vanquished is a good measure of who we are as a country. Stripping them of all heritage, dignity, ways to earn a living etc. has repurcussions far into the future.

There are families who still revere their ancestors, probably more in the South than elsewhere. That is a huge factor.

And a factor, that no one is denying, is that there are racist and violent people who have always used that flag to stir things up and do bad things, and new groups who have appropriated it.

You have this whole murky mess. Some feelings are noble and some are inhuman.

Perhaps there should be a disclaimer on it that says this is meant to honor our dead and our heritage, which has admittedly shameful aspects to it. It is not meant to approve of racism, prejudice, violence, etc. etc....and then really limit how it can be used...

I don't have all the answers except no to use in public arenas, yes to small flags on graveyards of the fallen and to certain groups in Memorial Day parades and probably no to most other considerations. mg

It is very important to get what people are actually saying in these cases. I get mightily irritated when words are put in my mouth (I am not saying they have been here).

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Hrothgar
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 11:01 PM

In Australia, the Rebel flag is used by the Rebels motorcyle gang, with whom a sweet innocent young man like myself does not associate.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: wysiwyg
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 11:35 PM

Susan, you have a well established habit of trying to shift the premise when you are not sure how to answer. Your response to this was a grand example. You attempt to move to my "style", appearing a wise and gentle counselor, instead of responding to the post. It is patronizing and insulting. Deal with the issue and let me seek therapy for my well intentioned, but misguided ways, OK?

Huh?

WTF.

~S~

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 07:22 AM

I see some Australian bikers use a better Rebel Flag, as used at Eureka Stockade and favoured by Ned Kelly.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 10:05 AM

in the century and a half after the American Civil War, it has been co-opted by racists and bigots as their symbol, leaving those who wish to commemorate the individual valor of Southern soldiers...


Oh, please, Art, I think you're smarter than that- the flag was not "co-opted" after the fact- it was since its inception a symbol of racism and bigotry.

Have you ever read the works of Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens or the South Carolina Ordinance of Seccession among other things?

What about the works of that great Confederate patriot Nathan Bedford Forrest, the father of the Ku Klux Klan?

There are PLENTY of other options for those who
"wish to commemorate the individual valor of Southern soldiers".
Just so long as the commemoration doesn't erase or pervert the meaning of The Cause that this valor was exercised in aid of.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 10:13 AM

Mary, please do check your history.

Memorial Day- or more properly Decoration Day - was the creation of the Grand Army of the Republic for decorating the graves of the UNION dead.

It had nothing whatsoever to do with "the ladies of the post-Confederacy".

And furthermore the systematic desecration of the graves of Union soldiers buried in the South was continued up until very recent times.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: artbrooks
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 10:15 AM

Please continue to maintain your personal opinion, with or without factual basis. I'm out of here.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 10:32 AM

And what, precisely, Art, have I posted that is "without factal basis"?

Are you looking for citations? I've given you several. Have you checked them out? Would you like additional ones?