Confederate Flag Ban: At last after 150 years in the path for the civil rights fight?

a reply to: BlackboxInquiry

No, it's not being banned (by the government). It's just being removed from state property and private companies are voluntarily removing merchandise.

As far as what it represents, to many (most?) white southerners, it's not about race or hate (to some, yes it is, but not the majority), but I personally think to a lot of southern blacks it DOES represent that, and that's what white people don't get.

I've heard white people that I know say, "What's wrong with the flag, I don't find it offensive, etc." Of course not! You're freakin' WHITE?!? lol

People can't see things except from their own perspectives, which is a shame, and a huge problem in today's world, across ALL facets of society (politics, social constructs, business world, religion, etc).

a reply to: The angel of light

the Confederate flag does not have anymore place in the public life of America

I'm not oppose to removing it from gov't property, but not from private individuals or businesses unless they want to.

The N word also has no more place in the public life of America, shouldn't that be banned from rap songs, the media, and from our president?

a reply to: Liquesence

businesses are banning it like crazy

everybody's flipping out

a reply to: xuenchen

Private businesses can do whatever the hell they like.

Point is the government is not banning it (except perhaps from state property)...yet.

a reply to: Liquesence

The English flag was banned in some places recently due to it being considered ''offensive''.

There is a small contingent such as the EDL that use it, though that is not the majority.

The bigger picture should be seen, the English flag means identity and patriotism to many and only offensive to a few due to how they view it. It is a very old flag and it's initial purpose wasn't being ''racially offensive''.

The confederate flag is similar. To most it is just an innocuous reference to the civil war and the South. And to non Americans it is one of the major symbols of America. Branding it racist now is not good for US PR or for the majority of the people there.

If some see it as other than about the Civil war and heritage then the US should look at addressing that instead of banning it. It is easily done. However it appears there is purpose to all of it, and that is that the US government is stripping Americans of identity. Divide and conquer tactics in full view of the world.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Despite the continuing pride in the Union flag, the report warns that English anxiety over its own flag risks damaging the Union.

It states: “England, the land of Shakespeare, seems uncertain how to find its modern voice. Historically an understated Englishness has been conflated with being British.

"It is ignoring England that now presents a greater threat to the Union than anything else.”

Sunder Katwala, the director of the think tank, said: “We’ve done nothing in the era of devolution to give a voice to England as well as Scotland and Wales, which has left English identity too open to an extremist fringe.

“The EDL with their street yobbery are not the only ones to blame for the unusual anxiety that too many people in England feel about their own flag of St George.

"They share the blame with the politicians who haven’t spoken up for a modern English patriotism, as well as our British identity.

“While the devolution debates in Scotland and Wales appear to have modernised the Scots and Welsh associations with their flag, attitudes to the English flag are lagging behind.”

originally posted by: Liquesence

No, it's not being banned (by the government). It's just being removed from state property and private companies are voluntarily removing merchandise.

Not really.

First Confederate flag


Confederate battle flag
[img]http://thisistwitchy.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/screen-shot-2013-01-08-at-10-51-56-am.png?w=645&h=426[img]

Former Georgia state flag


Current Georgia state flag


(fingers crossed hoping I finally got imbedding images right)

(apparently not, got to click on links)

a reply to: VictorVonDoom

I recall very well when the GA state flag was changed, and the debate surrounding it.

Needless to say, it's not being banned by the government but removed.

Alabama just ordered it taken down from the state capitol. Others are or will follow suit.

originally posted by: olaru12

originally posted by: beezzer
a reply to: The angel of light

Do we, at last, still get to keep the history books? Or do those get banned as well.

.

I don't want to ban the flag...But the designer of said flag should have his words included in all history books.

His words....

As a people, we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-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 soon take rank among the proudest ensigns of the nations, and be hailed by the civilized world as THE WHITE MAN'S FLAG... As a national emblem, it is significant of our higher cause, the cause of a superior race.

- William T Thompson

I can see how some folks might be offended.

Except that's not the same flag.
He designed the Stainless Banner not the Confederate Battle flag that my ancestors carried into battle and shed blood for.
People want to destroy and bury my history. Someone said "What about Stone Mountain?". I grew up literally living in the shadow of that mountain and I would take up arms against anyone who attempts to deface its carving.

Now this is not directed at you personally just those who seek to ban the symbols of my history in general.

Get this through you thick leftest skulls.
NO ONE HAS A RIGHT TO NOT BE OFFENDED!

You cant wipe the history away just so you can insulate yourself from emotional weakness. If looking up and seeing a historical monument reduces you to a quivering jelly its YOU that has the problem not me and not my history and not my monuments and symbols.
People in this country need to mind their own damn business and learn who to grow up and be adults. Rule your life with rational and logical decisions and do not be driven by irrational emotional angst. Maybe then you can get off all the medications, stop being such narcissistic and neurotic basket cases and stop blaming everyone else for making such poor life choices and being abject failures.

a reply to: theabsolutetruth

As I said above, to many white southerners it does NOT represent race or hate (but rather southern heritage or rebelliousness), but to many BLACKS it DOES. People outside the country looking in might not see that or understand the very delicate issues of race with we are still dealing and have been for decades, if not centuries. THAT'S what we're still addressing and why we're having so many problems BECAUSE the race issue still exists ON BOTH SIDES.

I do NOT think it should be banned. I'm correctly other people's false assumption that it IS being banned. It's not being banned by the government.

originally posted by: Liquesence
a reply to: VictorVonDoom

I recall very well when the GA state flag was changed, and the debate surrounding it.

Needless to say, it's not being banned by the government but removed.

Alabama just ordered it taken down from the state capitol. Others are or will follow suit.

Hey, yes we pulled a fast one changing the Georgia flag back to the flag modeled after the First National Flag of the Confederacy.
HA!

a reply to: Liquesence

Things are offensive to people all the time if they use a lens of victimisation.

The Scottish aren't keen on the English flag for example though England has the right to have a flag just as Scotland does.

The whole 'erasing history' thing is not a good idea, it's just denial. There are plenty of things that people could get offended at here, but there would be nothing left if they were all banned, people need to grow up and get over it.

a reply to: Liquesence

The point was, the new GA state flag was just a variation of the Confederate Stars and Bars. They changed the image, but not the sentiment because they knew most people wouldn't recognize that they substituted one Confederate flag for another.

edit: as Dragoon noticed

a reply to: interupt42

a reply to: BlackboxInquiry

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

a reply to: mamabeth

a reply to: AmericanZombie

The Peace of God to all that belong to the Light,
Dear Readers,

Well, first I must express my consideration and respect to all that decided to enter in the thread and release part of the tension created by the terrible news of Charleston here. I appreciate all your interesting replies, they represent a diversity of points of view that is the expression of the diversity that makes America a more rich nation in all aspects.

I have chosen some members here at random to reply, but this post try to cover all what it was said until now and well is for everybody in general, since it is practically impossible to give a response to all the ones that decided to enter in the thread.

It is interesting to see all the implications that the crazy and so sad massacre of the Church is triggering, and of course I am sensible to the fact that it entered in debate a symbol that many consider part of the cultural inheritance of an entire region of the country.

Tradition is something always difficult to overcome, but we must think that there are good and bad traditions along the world, and sometimes there is a moment to reflect if something is still valid just because a lot of generations decided it was.

We all know about the fancy shops that still sell around the world items of WWII with Swastikas or USSR nostalgia items for collectors interested in HIstory, and that is something that sometimes I have found offensive for the memory of who were prosecuted by those regimes.

Traditionally for instance, the women were along many generations considered as to be dedicated entirely to the family and domestic life, it was it was thought that they were unable to perform in many jobs as men, but we are seeing that such a tradition was fundamentally based on myths.

Millions of brave and determined women have showed along History that they even can do many times with many men think is impossible. The case of British Queens like Victoria or Elizabeth I and II are a good example of what I am saying. Now, the impact of women in American life has been tremendously important, After all there are two women in this moment running to be the Next President of the USA and there 3 that became Secretary of State.

It is obviously not an easy decision to give ride of symbols that were used a lot to identify a southern culture along many generations,
there is a lot of people that use those symbols even ignoring the dark side that can be related with their origin, just as part of the popular
folklore of an entire region of the country.

There are still many things to decide around this issue. For instance are we going to be forced drop or ban the DUKES of HAZZARD because
their car is called the General Lee and it has the confederate flag in the roof?

money.cnn.com...

Perhaps just only a carefully edition of those old,
but still fun films to suppress the flag would be good enough, after all the computer technology we have now allow us to do it.

www.yahoo.com...

But what were going to do with the possibly millions of toys or other children stuff that were made using this confederate flag, as for
instance small replicas of the General Lee car.?

time.com...

Well, one thing is sure, the decision taken by the Governor of South Carolina is creating a precedent fits perfect with the non achieved dreams of Sheriff Edward Thomas "Big Ed" Little, about the car of the Duke brothers.

www.theatlantic.com...

Thanks for your attention and the reception to this thread.

The Angel of Lightness

originally posted by: theabsolutetruth
a reply to: Liquesence

Things are offensive to people all the time if they use a lens of victimisation.

The Scottish aren't keen on the English flag for example though England has the right to have a flag just as Scotland does.

The whole 'erasing history' thing is not a good idea, it's just denial. There are plenty of things that people could get offended at here, but there would be nothing left if they were all banned, people need to grow up and get over it.

I'm not disagreeing, and I've said as much in other posts.

The point is that some people simply do not understand why the flag is seen as offensive to some, period.

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa

originally posted by: beezzer
a reply to: Sremmos80

But you can probably buy commie flags at walmart.

I've seen skin heads with there entire utes sporting that Confederate flag as there paint work, in the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

You can debate it all you want, but it won't change the fact that most people in the US and around the world, consider the confederate flag as a symbol of white people being somehow superior to other races.

So...some moron skinheads on the other side of the world have twisted the historical meaning of the CSA flag, and that makes the actual symbolism of the flag irrelevant?

Why not research it so you can see for yourself how your neo-Nazi mates are misrepresenting?

originally posted by: OpenMindedRealist

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa

originally posted by: beezzer
a reply to: Sremmos80

But you can probably buy commie flags at walmart.

I've seen skin heads with there entire utes sporting that Confederate flag as there paint work, in the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

You can debate it all you want, but it won't change the fact that most people in the US and around the world, consider the confederate flag as a symbol of white people being somehow superior to other races.

So...some moron skinheads on the other side of the world have twisted the historical meaning of the CSA flag, and that makes the actual symbolism of the flag irrelevant?

Why not research it so you can see for yourself how your neo-Nazi mates are misrepresenting?

No point researching anything brother. Did you watch that episode of "East bound and down' where Danny McBride rocks up near a black couple on the beach with his body board, which has a confederate flag on it, with a cannabis leaf in the middle. He says to them "nice tan, I'm hopping to get one like that this summer" (paraphrasing).

It's an hilarious joke for a tv show. But its also undeniable proof that even the people of South Carolina, know full well that the Confederate flag represents racism.

originally posted by: The angel of light
The Peace of God to all that belong to the light,
Dear Readers,

We all have seen when an era of Tyranny ends in History, how the symbols of it are for ever banned or even destroyed.

That happened at the siege of Berlin in 1945 in the ending the Third Reich in Germany, when all the Swastikas were removed from public buildings or destroyed, or when the Red flag of the Soviet union was removed from the Kremlin in 1991, and many giant monuments to Lenin, Marx and Stalin were removed from public spaces, as well as when the Berlin wall was demolished in 1990 by the crowds, or when the infamous Francoist Eagle was removed from Spain Flag in 1977 or the Stalinist Coat of Arms from the Romanian one in 1989.

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

Well, perhaps this can be surprising by many but it seems that the moment to turn its back to a horrible page of the national past definitively has arrived for America, that for what we are seeing it looks is ready to decide to move a so dark page of History for ever and in a definitive closure of the long fight against Slavery, discrimination, harassment of minorities , of segregation of all kind.

www.msnbc.com...

This week a genocide in a Church in South Carolina, by a fanatic racist, triggered the debate for the definitive ending of the use of a flag that symbolizes certainly a regional identity, as well as the worst tyranny ever existed in America: The Slavery and discrimination supported in racial supremacy.

If this political momentum prevails it took 150 years since the civil war to understand that the Confederate flag does not have anymore place in the public life of America. Ironically it was precisely in South Carolina on December 24, 1860 that this flag started be used as a symbol of secession to support racial supremacy.

www.nytimes.com...

The confederate flag has been in use commonly in public buildings as a symbol of Southern pride, it is even part of the flags of various States of the South, and it was curiously present among the people that was in the Dallas Airport on the infamous November 22nd of 1963 when President John F. Kennedy arrived to his date with death.

www.youtube.com...

This flag was used not only a symbol of cultural identity for an entire region of the country but also by the extreme right wing in the 1960s, as it was for instance in Dallas just few weeks before of the day in which America lost its innocence, during the tremendous humiliation to the US ambassador in UN Mr. Al Stevenson when he was attacked by fanatic crooks trying to boycott a public event organized to support Kennedy reelection.

www.youtube.com...

What ever happened with this flag, anyway this week we are witnessed a Historic occasion when the second American Revolution, the one of the civil rights we are living, has moved a Southern governor, of the State where the civil war began, to request the definitive ban of this flag and even changed the mentality of who profited a lot of to maintain alive these symbols of hatred and segregation.

www.nytimes.com...

Of course if this change finally become reality it would not arrive without needing a last and ultimate battle to remove for ever the symbolism that was behind segregation in the country, since there are sectors that resist it , and have decided to conspire against a change that now appears as unavoidable , in the name of a southern cultural identity, that they claim needs to use these kind of symbols, to maintain a cultural control over the population.

The League of the South, for instance, which is pushing for secession, is also planning a protest in Columbia this weekend, though it has not announced details.

www.nbcnews.com...

at 52 Years of Kennedy Assassination it is difficult to avoid to think in his so famous Secret societies speech while listening these fundamentalist leaders, or can we also say sectarianism advocates, that are accused to be secessionists by some, to try to defend their right to continue using their beloved symbols.

www.youtube.com...

This thread of course is open for the free discussion of this Historic moment in the American life, naturally within the boundaries of the
norms of decorum and mutual respect in the replies.

What do you think? is America ready to bury for ever the Confederate flag, as symbol of hatred or segregation, giving a definitive Yes to the Civil rights National identity over a culture of regionalism that resist to disappear or Not?

Thanks for your attention,

the Angel of Lightness

Overly sensitive, politically correct people,,,,, get over it. The flag does not represent what you imply,,,,, ergo, you have not a clue.

a reply to: The angel of light



Fools.......Tyranny nipping at our heals.....Progressives ideals rotting the country from the inside out. This time around the progressives are coming after flags and symbols. The argument is the flag is a symbol of slavery and hate.




Freedom of speech is just that even if you do not agree with the message. Progressives sadly put ideology above liberty and the only path that leads down is outright tyranny. Imagine conservatives want to ban the gay pride flag stating it is offensive.......slippery slope. And before you say they are completely different....In principle yes but in terms of free speech no.

Good grief people.... the flag has not been banned. I can go buy one right now if I so see fit.

The title of this thread is mis-leading at best and nothing more than baiting people in argument about something that hasn't happened.

Several stores have decided to no longer sell confederate flags.... that is their choice, same as you have the choice not to shop at those stores if you do not agree with their decision.

Quit saying the flag has been banned/is going to be banned. It hasn't and isn't. A store deciding to ban an item only affects that item in that particular store. Simply go to a different store and buy one. If the flag was truly banned by the government, then owning it could be a crime. It will never be banned by the federal government.

I have banned people from flying the Nazi flag on my property. Only affects people who come on my property. You can go to your house and fly the Nazi flag all day if that is what floats your boat.