Well here we are again my repukelican friends,back in South Carolina. And I know you know what that means. Yep, it's confederate flag time. It seems like every four years as we move through South Carolina we have to deal with this issue. And of course, the repukes, given their base, always have a harder time dealing with it. (Party of Lincoln my ass)
Now I have to give it to John McCain, he has remained principled with this issue, and he has refused to back down on his stance against flying that symbol of the confederacy on the top of South Carolina's state capitol. Even if it's down in the land of Dixie. Now it took old John awhile to come to this principled moment, and it took losing to the frat boy to do it, but he came around, and he is still taking that position, so let's give him some credit for that.
It should be fun to see how the other repukelican candidates approach this issue. I am sure they will do the wrong thing. I mean, come on, they are repukelicans (sorry cobb). And I think we have heard this song before. They will say it's a state's rights issue, and something that should not be decided by anyone else but the people of South Carolina. "Heritage not Hate". That flag still flies right near the capitol, and there are still quite a few folks down in South Carolina who don't think it was a good idea to remove it in the first place. They have been following McCain around waving confederate flags at him in protest and giving out fliers. I wonder how the other candidates from the grand old party will deal with this issue? I know that Mitt, for instance, previously came out against it, but I think that might have something to do with the fact that he has already written off South Carolina as a state where he can win the primary, and not because of some deep principled conviction.
"Probably the worse advise I've ever given myself....I knew it was a symbol that was offensive to so many people...And afterwards I went back and apologized."
OK Mr. McCain, I am going to take your word for it. But I am not sure about the folks running against you from your party. And given the party of Lincoln's history lately, I know you can't blame me.
26 comments:
The Flag makes me gag.
When I was growing up, fear, hate, and anger swirled around it's colors.
It still represents the flag of defiance, and an unwillingness to give up a cultural value (heritage?) that reeks to blacks.
"When I was growing up, fear, hate, and anger swirled around it's colors.
It still represents the flag of defiance, and an unwillingness to give up a cultural value (heritage?) that reeks to blacks."
Big hat tip to that statement.
I didn't grow up in the South, but I lived there long enough to know that it (the flag) still has some power down there.
I've lived in Georgia all my life and every time I see the flag, a little part of me always wonder about the person wearing it.
They say "heritage, not hate," but they fail to admit that their "heritage" is immersed in hatred towards blacks.
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Nee-ger-tah-roes please, slavery lasted longer under the US flag than it did under the Confederate flag.
Jim Crow and segregation were under the US flag.
Lincoln said that if he could maintain the union without freeing the slaves, he would do exactly that.
The Emancipation Proclamation freed only the slaves in the rebelling state.
Lincoln wanted to send all black people, newly freed and previously free, to Haiti.
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To display the confederate flag, even when it conjures up bad memories of oppression and victimization in your fellow Americans, is not Christ-like. You associate yourself with those who committed such acts under the banner of the rebel flag. It is similar to me displaying the Swastika, in Crown Heights, NY. How is that showing love to my brother or my enemy? Now this doesn’t mean a thing if you aren’t Christian. If that is the case, then my bad- do what you do- you’ll get yours.
It's definitely "heritage" -- but not the heritage they want you to think. After completing his documentary on the Civil War, Ken Burns said this in an interview:
"The confederate flag was adopted by many of the states as their flag, not before the Civil War, not during the Civil War, or not even in the immediate period afterwards, that much misunderstood period called Reconstruction. Those flags were instituted in the 1950’s and there’s only one thing that happened in the 1950’s that would have caused the southern states to add the confederate flag. They took one of the battle flags, and it wasn’t even the most popular confederate battle flag, and made it the symbol of segregation and resistance to civil rights and codified it in their flags. In that regard I find that the enthusiasm for the confederate flag today is both misplaced [and] misunderstood..."
So, yeah, heritage AND hate.
And the confederate flag differs from the American flag how? One still exist because it's a redneck's fantasy; usually I let him have it. Is the latter about love of fellow man, brotherhood? Under which do black daughters go missing and the media doesn't give a damn? Under which do black males dominate behind prison cells?
I became aware, the Confederate Army lost the war; their flag irrelevant, no matter how much confused southerners yearn for the old south or wish to keep it alive, I haven't witnessed where they were called Masa nor where a sturdy Mammy was in their kitchen cooking and serving. The deep south, in which I reside is what it is, mentally stagnant, unknown mixed race whites, and oblivious to the fact, that many of their poor white are in the same boat as black folk, and their true anger should be directed at politicians that were able to capture their lacking intellect playing race.
I'm telling you, I'm no right wing house Negro, but I don't understand why black folk get in a tissy behind the confederate flag. The more you yearn to remove it, the more foolish white people will raise it and argue for its keep. Greater are our issues then a piece of cloth, the southerners use to as a false sense of pride.
If anything our argument should be in making certain the American flag lives up to its promise of strength and unity for all it's people!
Yep, the Confederate Flag is all about states' rights, particularly their right to own slaves, and if not that, then the right to treat Blacks as second-class (if not lower!) citizens. They earned this right! We should leave them alone!
(ok if you didnt get that sarcasm, I cant help you)
Its 2008 people, its time to give up that Confederate ghost.
L
Field, I need to school you on terminology.
I coined the phrase "ReThug" about three years ago, when the policies of the Republican Party and how they acted like thug ganstalicious, ghetto-fabulous in getting shyt passed on the Hill.
Republican + Thug = ReThug.
RePuke also works. And what they did to John McCain in South Carolina back in 2000 should have forced McCain to go Independent. It didn't - and he's kissed Bush's ass since 2002.
But, as ReThug candidates go, if I had a choice for anyone to get the nod out of that camp, it would be McCain, as opposed to cross-dressing, serial adulterer Rudy; snake-oil salesman Dominionist Huckleberry or Lurch, aka, carpet-baggin plays a DA on TV Fred Thompson. Ol' Fred was so sorry, he even lost his Law and Order gig when the show promoted Sam Waterston to DA this season.
IF John McCain is the best the ReThugs can do, that says plenty about the choices the Grand Old Perverts (GOP) have.
And I get sick every time I see a Rebel Jack flag - I damned near whipped a girl's ass in college because she messed up our dorm group picture by wearing a nightgown made out of that flag.
The three sistas in the dorm (I was the fourth sista) raised enough Hell that the school treated our asses to real food at the local school burger joint for a week as an apology...
There were six sistas, we had to send the other two to the "Lawn" for mumbling about free speech and being friends with the bigoted chick wearing that flag as a nightgown.
Are those who are claiming that flag represents their "heritage" saying that their "heritage" contains hate and bigotry?
Because when they spout "heritage" that exactly what they're saying to me. 'Nuff said.
I'm telling you, I'm no right wing house Negro, but I don't understand why black folk get in a tissy behind the confederate flag.
Um, because whenever there were lynchings or terrorizing of the areas where Blacks lived, the burning of crosses and the thunder of horses' hooves; not to mention the men wearing hoods, robes, screaming "Nigger" at the top of their lungs - the Confederate flag was usually accompanying these actions and events as a got-damned accessory.
It was probabaly the last thing a brotha or sista saw as they hung from a tree with a noose around their necks.
It represents the same thing a noose symbolizes - a time when a human being could be terrorized and brutalized to the point of being killed because of the color of their skin.
That's why African-Americans who know their history get so "het up" about that damned flag. Because it symbolizes a history that is ugly to us and it should be for those who wave it with pride.
What kind of person takes pride in a symbol that represents bigotry, hate and non-Christian ideals?
A person who ignores his history or is doing his damndest to rewrite it more favorably to him so he can absolve himself of all guilt. When we get "het up" the white man can't forget history like this because until he apologizes for it and gives us our forty acres and that mule, we won't allow him to forget, and we shouldn't allow him absolution until he makes amends.
If you can't understand that, you either are ignorant of your own history, or you're unwilling to understand anyone else's history.
01 17 08
FN:
If you would have done your research, you would see that John McCain came out strongly against the rebel flag in 2000, that is EIGHT years ago. So in fact, he has held that principle for quite some time.
Not that I am convinced he is the one I will vote for come November, but this perhaps strengthens his case.
The Confederate Flag is the least of McCain's problems now, Field Negro.
He has to deal with Swift Boot (not boat) Vets smearing him for his Vietnam service in which he got captured and tortured by the NVA. They say McCain leaked crucial info willingly to the NVA and some other stuff and praised them too. They put that out in ads, e-mails, and push calls. You can say it's the 2008 version of the "black baby" incident of 2000, Field.
And Romney's getting it too- he's getting smeared by anti-Mormon ads. One nasty one came out, probably from Huck's camp since it went to religious people.
So if y'all think the Clinton-Obama race Vs gender feud was bad, then y'all ain't seen the Rethugican camp. They are hitting race, gender, military service, religion, the Constitution, EVERY DAMN 3rd RAIL IN POLITICS!
I can't wait till Feb 4th, can't you, Field Negro?
O/T
Here's some strange shit to ponder.
Alice Huffman, who heads California's National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) endorsed the Borg Queen for president.
"Over the years, Hillary Clinton has earned my respect as a staunch advocate for the rights of people invisible to our nation's government, including women, minorities, children and seniors," said Alice Huffman.
Whatever, girlfriend.
Christian Progressive liberal, and all these atrocities didn't occur under the American Flag? Pleeeezzzze
Am I a fan of the confederate flag known because I don't see much of a difference between it or the American flag? I don't think so! I know my history, and what the confederate flag represents, and what it still mean. As a matter of fact, I reside in the southern states, my family can tell you about lynchings; a fact that you suggest I'm so ignorant to was a part of their reality.
If my question was misunderstood, then I will clarify. How does the American Flag differ from its treatment of blacks then the confederate flag?
One flag gave two arrogant racist the right to think that they could come after little Emmit till in the middle of the night, and the other Flag told him mother, we aren't going to do a damn thing about it. And?
Someone once said, I believe they were from another country, that the US is the only country in the world to fly the flag of someone it beat in a war/losing flag.
I have never forgotten that and in all reality to argue over something so trivial is a shame. The flag is an embarassment and if they want to keep it individually that's great, but huge state flags with that symbol on them are a disgrace.
Well, aka Lynn, since you clarified your statement, I'll answer your question about the American flag like Paul Mooney did in one of his concerts:
Slave Woman: "Laws, I's so tired, I see stars!!"
Betsy Ross: "You see stars? Good, Nigger, now put those stars on that Flag and fry me some chicken!!!"
In other words, Mooney was saying that Betsy Ross probably didn't create what we now know as the American flag - like anything else that was created by slaves, their owners took credit for it.
So the atrocities were committed under both flags; true, but in every picture of lynching I've seen, in the background there was always a Rebel Jack flying in the breeze, and that's probably why we react to it.
Trust me, if the Klan was waving an American flag at those same lynchings and cross-burnings, more likely than not, Black people would react to the American flag the same way we do to the Rebel Jack.
Additionally, it's a federal offense to burn an American flag, so that might be another reason why we ease up on the American flag - they already try to jail us for everything else under the sun; why hand them another reason to imprison us?
This debates'going to be good.
Nsangoma,trust me,we are all aware of Mr.Lincoln's issues.
You have to read some of my older posts.
"Heritage and hate".i like that.
I equate that f*****g flag to all the horrible nazi symbols of the past.
Anyone who says otherwise is living in a dream world.
The American flag is my flag and so is my State flag. For this country is as much the slaves as it is the slave master. Our sweat, bones and blood are in the dirt. I do not fly the flag or deify it. I am an American citizen and therefore have an obligation to understand all of Americas history, the "good, bad, the ugly;" that is the nature of civilization. The interesting aspect of this country is that it has the possibility of good government and to benefit all its citizens; the Confederate flag has no possibilities. Therefore I do not care if you put the Confederate flag on your butt, coffee cup or your car; but I do object to it being flown on the state house, in a color guard with the American flag or in any government display. That includes events at public institutions, schools and colleges.
Actually, Lincoln *was* a white supremist!
Good point Hathor. Those who fly the rebel jack or who flew it denied the achievements of blacks whereas under the american flag their achievements were at least recognized ever so often and we know the American flag stands for the blood sweat and tears of Africans. Well said
"How does the American Flag differ from its treatment of blacks then the confederate flag?"
I hear you aka lynn, and I hope you hear us. I don't revere either flag.
As I see it, Ol' Glory (Ol' Gory?) is a flag of racial oppression, and the Confederate flag is a flag of resistance, intolerance, slavery, Jim-Crowism, segregation, and the KKK.
As many have stated here, we have suffered more under the states that flew the Con'Flag, than the Red, White, and Blue, although the Stars & Stripes gave direct (and indirect) support for the institutions that we've come to abhor.
Blacks (probably free and ex-slaves) fought on the side of the Union, the Stars & Stripes. The Civil War was as much about states' rights as it was about slavery, which the states felt was nobody's business but their own.
No doubt some slaves and some freedmen fought on the side of the South, either willingly or coercively. Did Southern Blacks Fight for the South? Some support for that may be found at this site. Makes for interesting reading.
I'll respect, but I won't fly, Ol' Glory to honor those black soldiers who fought and died defending it's colors.
Even setting aside the racism associated with the flag, I'm curious as to why the SC government insists on carrying a symbol of treason. The Confederacy committed treason when they raised up arms in an attempt to overthrow the US government.
Nowadays you get called a terrorist for trying such a thing.
Djtyg:
I've often wondered why South Carolina wasn't allowed to remain seceded from the Union when they tried to overthrow the American Government and basically started the Civil War in response for not getting their way.
I'm sure it's better to live there now, but I'm not sure I would want to live in an area with that much horrible history and such a virulent past relationship with African-Americans. I once worked for a guy who said he'd never travel to any part of the deep South, even if job-related, because of the South's history with African-Americans.
I guess that's why he always sent me in his place when those meetings came up in places like Charleston and Atlanta, LOL.
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