Opinions on the Confederate flag?

[ImStalinist]

Hate it, tolerate it, love it?

[Book O'Dead]

Um, it's just a flag, man.

[ImStalinist]

Um, it's just a flag, man.
True that. However, the opinions on it are mixed on the opinions on the C. S. A.

[ZrianKobani]

I'm a country boy at heart so I love it in the sense that I honor the idea of secession and the idea that the Confederates were trying to restore the ideals of the American Revolution. That said, I understand why some people jump on it's head and I hate that it's become so associated with the Klan.

[graymouser]

It's the flag of slavery. Confederate flags should not be publicly displayed, unless it is a Civil War reenactment or the flag is being burned as a symbol of shame.

[Book O'Dead]

True that. However, the opinions on it are mixed on the opinions on the C. S. A.

Yeah, and whatever those "opinions" may be, they're about 150 years too late and out of date.

The confederate states wanted to preserve and extend chattel slavery over the objections of many in the North. They overreacted when Lincoln was elected president, pushed the issue, brought it to a head, forced a civil war, lost and (thankfully) brought about the end of the very institution they sough of protect. End of story.

The Confederate flag is simply a physical remnant of past history and means absolutely nothing to most United Staters.

Those few who hang on to it are mostly Southern and Midwestern rednecks who use it to signal each other that they hate and fear African Americans and wish for the return of the "simpler days" when it was possible to legally subjugate and exploit others whose only fault (if such a thing can be faulted) is that they were born black.

[Revolution starts with U]

Fuck your "rebel" flag.

And no, the confederacy was not trying to restore the ideals of the revolution. That's pure post-hoc revisionism.

[Book O'Dead]

I'm a country boy at heart so I love it in the sense that I honor the idea of secession and the idea that the Confederates were trying to restore the ideals of the American Revolution. That said, I understand why some people jump on it's head and I hate that it's become so associated with the Klan.

That's what the Southern slave-holders and their supporters claimed. The reality, however, was another; They wanted to break up the Union (something the founders of the U.S. fought a revolutionary war to create) in order to preserve an institution that went diametrically counter to the ideal embodied in the Declaration of Independence: "ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL".

Secession from the UNION was and is a reactionary cause, not an ideal of the American revolution.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

It's a flag that represents a slave-holders rebellion, fucking burn it. Today it's just used as a symbol of hate, I know people here in California that fly that shit and have it tatted on them even though they have never been to the South.

[ZrianKobani]

Those few who hang on to it are mostly Southern and Midwestern rednecks who use it to signal each other that they hate and fear African Americans and wish for the return of the "simpler days" when it was possible to legally subjugate and exploit others whose only fault (if such a thing can be faulted) is that they were born black.

On behalf of us all, thank you for touring the South and Mid-West and taking the time to seek out every individual who owns a rebel flag, getting to know them so you know their politics and reasoning, and reporting back to us.

For real though; you're free to hate the flag as much as I am to love it but that's no excuse to generalize and smear people. I know both sides of the issue and whatever the feelings about it, attacking people like that is unjustified.

[Ocean Seal]

It represents a history of segregation, sharecropping, and slavery. It's completely reactionary and saying that it is history should not excuse those who bear it from responsibility. Often it is associated with supporting the arch-right position of States rights which should more clearly be stated as a state's right to defy the national government and stop integration in the schools, or in public life.

[Tim Finnegan]

I'm going to be a bit contentious here and say that I do, to a certain extent, sympathising with the use of the flag as a symbol of Southern regional and cultural identity. However, I think that it goes without saying that the flag in question is a inarguably godawful choice for that purpose, given not only its historically unsavoury associations, to put it lightly- and unlike, say, the Union flag, those aren't accumulated associations, but innate ones- but in that it symbolically excludes non-white (and arguably, non-Anglo) residents of the region from membership in that identity. I think that there would be some value in designing and popularising a new regional flag with an inclusive character, perhaps as part of broader program to publicly reclaim a Southern regional identity from the narrow, reactionary politics with which it is associated outside of the region. (It could even be argued that the saltire might be retained as a symbol of the Anglo-Celtic cultural influence on the region, if balanced with some symbolism asserting the equally significant African-American influence- perhaps a saltire using elements of the pan-African colours?- although that's obviously a choice that would have to be left to the inhabitants of the region. I'm probably just a little biased towards saltires, for obvious reasons. ;))

Do any Southern posters have any reactions to that suggestion?


Um, it's just a flag, man.
On behalf of vexillology enthusiasts everywhere, let me just say ":crying:".

[Triple A]

What rednecks look up to as something glorious and to be proud off was actualy an act of treason by the laws of US.

And the heritage not hate argument makes no sense when the heritage is hate.

[Triple A]

Um, it's just a flag, man.

So is the nazi flag.
How about what is stands for?


The flag looks good aesthetically btw.

[Book O'Dead]

On behalf of us all, thank you for touring the South and Mid-West and taking the time to seek out every individual who owns a rebel flag, getting to know them so you know their politics and reasoning, and reporting back to us.

This is what I wrote: "Those few who hang on to it are mostly Southern and Midwestern rednecks..." "Mostly" being an admission that there might be some (like yourself, maybe) who cling to it because they have no real understanding of its historic significance.


For real though; you're free to hate the flag as much as I am to love it but that's no excuse to generalize and smear people. I know both sides of the issue and whatever the feelings about it, attacking people like that is unjustified.

Racist are not people in the Darwinian sense, my friend.

Seriously, I don't really give a damn about the confederate flag or any other flag. I am a worker, a socialist and an internationalist. And as such I have no country and no flag unless it is the RED FLAG of a revolutionary working class, united to overthrow capitalism and the vampires who profit from it.

Most likely there is no real difference between you and me except I understand the historical and modern-day significance of he Confederate flag whereas you don't.

[Kamos]

What do you think about Germans waving swastika flags? There, you have your answer. The flag is reactionary, and should never be seen again.


I'm going to be a bit contentious here and say that I do, to a limited extent, sympathising with the use of the flag as a symbol of Southern regional and cultural identity.Again, what would you think about a German waving a swastika, saying that he's expressing his cultural identity with it? You might say that the Confederate flag is not like the Nazi flag, but it is. It represents the same evil in a different color (literally), and the only difference is that for some reason, it isn't universally despised like the swastika.

EDIT: To the before-last option:

http://media.nscdn.com/uploads/cache/images/1297360428-925607-360x270-1297356038Challenge-accepted.jpeg

[ZrianKobani]

Secession from the UNION was and is a reactionary cause, not an ideal of the American revolution.

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government."

[Ocean Seal]

Secession from the UNION was and is a reactionary cause, not an ideal of the American revolution.
And further it shouldn't mater if it was an ideal of the revolution. Because so was neo-liberal capitalism and the right to own people as slaves. So I say many of the ideals of the American revolution were reactionary even for their time.

[ZrianKobani]

What rednecks look up to as something glorious and to be proud off was actualy an act of treason by the laws of US.

If you haven't noticed, we're all revolutionaries here. We're in the business of treason.

[hatzel]

I'll just let all you guys know that I'll be voting "War sucks, pacifism and dipmolcy [sic] FTW!", because that's what I usually reply when people ask me what I think about a flag, or anything else, for that matter...

Mother K: would you like a cup of tea, son?
Rabbi K: WAR SUCKS!!!

:rolleyes:

[Tim Finnegan]

And further it shouldn't mater if it was an ideal of the revolution. Because so was neo-liberal capitalism and the right to own people as slaves. So I say many of the ideals of the American revolution were reactionary even for their time.
Just an aside here, but: what? :confused:

[Kamos]

If you haven't noticed, we're all revolutionaries here. We're in the business of treason.

Are we also in the business of segregation, if I may ask?

[Book O'Dead]

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government."

Sure, but in the case of the Southern "Slave-ocrats", what they were trying to protect from destruction was not liberty in its general, universal sense, but their "liberty" to own and possess other human beings as chattel property.

In effect what you are attempting to do is to twist the ideals of the American Declaration of Independence to conform with oppression and subjugation. That is a perversion that Abraham Lincoln opposed and why he vowed to preserve the Union even if it meant destroying the South's economic base.

You can't win this argument; it's been fought by better people than ourselves and settled long before you and I were born.

[bcbm]

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government."

which government was more destructive towards those ends, the one that wanted slavery or the one that didn't? :rolleyes:

[danyboy27]

such flags should be preserved for educational purpose and personnal collections. It should not be used for official reason.

I just think its stunning that the south didnt came up with a new flag reprenting their cultures and values after all those year.

[WindyCityNinja]

My cousin, from Texas, came to Chicago for his brothers military/navy/whatever, I forgot what it was, and was wearing a Confederate Flag belt buckle. Bad idea.

[ZrianKobani]

Are we also in the business of segregation, if I may ask?
http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/images/Strawman-motivational.jpg

[bcbm]

lol

[ZrianKobani]

Sure, but in the case of the Southern "Slave-ocrats", what they were trying to protect from destruction was not liberty in its general, universal sense, but their "liberty" to own and possess other human beings as chattel property.

In effect what you are attempting to do is to twist the ideals of the American Declaration of Independence to conform with oppression and subjugation. That is a perversion that Abraham Lincoln opposed and why he vowed to preserve the Union even if it meant destroying the South's economic base.

You can't win this argument; it's been fought by better people than ourselves and settled long before you and I were born.

I'm not justifying or defending slavery but I will defend secession and the right of a state or province to break from a nation-state if it sees fit to do so. As to Lincoln, he didn't care anymore for black people than Davis did and from what I can tell, only went to war to preserve his own power.

[ZrianKobani]

which government was more destructive towards those ends, the one that wanted slavery or the one that didn't? :rolleyes:

The Union for suppressing the right of secession and the Confederacy for preserving the slave trade.

[ImStalinist]

What rednecks look up to as something glorious and to be proud off was actualy an act of treason by the laws of US.

Not that I am supporting the Confederacy here, but define treason and what makes stuff treasonous. :sleep:

[Welshy]

On behalf of us all, thank you for touring the South and Mid-West and taking the time to seek out every individual who owns a rebel flag, getting to know them so you know their politics and reasoning, and reporting back to us.

For real though; you're free to hate the flag as much as I am to love it but that's no excuse to generalize and smear people. I know both sides of the issue and whatever the feelings about it, attacking people like that is unjustified.

Since you are restricted, I don't know much of a use this post is. But as someone who lives in the Midwest, I can tell you that the only people here who fly the confederate flag (a lot of people do oddly enough) are horribly racist. They constantly say the n-word and white power, and a group of them set a cross on fire in the lawn of an african american families lawn. They are also horribly homophobic.

[Kamos]

http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/images/Strawman-motivational.jpg
For those confused, he's probably trying to imply that I'm using a strawman here (according to the source code of the image). Maybe, but my point stands: you cannot separate the flag from what it represents.

[ZrianKobani]

Since you are restricted, I don't know much of a use this post is. But as someone who lives in the Midwest, I can tell you that the only people here who fly the confederate flag (a lot of people do oddly enough) are horribly racist. They constantly say the n-word and white power, and a group of them set a cross on fire in the lawn of an african american families lawn. They are also horribly homophobic.

I was only recently restricted.

Are there racists who use the rebel flag? Yes.

But there are also Stalinists who use the hammer and sickle yet we all know it's not a symbol for that ideology.

The point is that I see no reason to glaze over people just because they use something and automatically assume why they use it.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I'm not justifying or defending slavery but I will defend secession and the right of a state or province to break from a nation-state if it sees fit to do so. As to Lincoln, he didn't care anymore for black people than Davis did and from what I can tell, only went to war to preserve his own power.
Wow seriously you will defend the right for reactionaries to seceed and create a state to further the agenda of slavery? You defend every revolution because the people have a "right to revolution" too? How can you defend a rebellion of slaveowners based on the principle that it is a rebellion? You're saying you don't defend why they're rebelling but that they have every right to? Tell me if you were alive during that time what would you have done if you lived in the North? If you lived in the South?

[ZrianKobani]

For those confused, he's probably trying to imply that I'm using a strawman here (according to the source code of the image). Maybe, but my point stands: you cannot separate the flag from what it represents.

Representation is relative; for some it means white power, for others it's pride in Southern heritage.

Same with the hammer and sickle; for many it means the USSR, for us it means worker's power.

[Le Libérer]

http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/images/Strawman-motivational.jpg

Fail

[ZrianKobani]

Tell me if you were alive during that time what would you have done if you lived in the North? If you lived in the South?
I'd try and dodge the draft regardless of where I was and if I was in the South I'd help smuggle slaves up North.

[Le Libérer]

Representation is relative; for some it means white power, for others it's pride in Southern heritage.

Same with the hammer and sickle; for many it means the USSR, for us it means worker's power.

Enjoy your stay in OI. I get the feeling it will be short lived.

[ZrianKobani]

Enjoy your stay in OI. I get the feeling it will be short lived.
One can only hope :lol:

[ImStalinist]

I am starting to get the feeling I shouldn't have made this thread :(

[NoOneIsIllegal]

After the revolution, all confederate flags shall be burnt and be replaced with this

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Anarchist_flag.svg/220px-Anarchist_flag.svg.png

[ImStalinist]

After the revolution, all confederate flags shall be burnt and be replaced with this

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Anarchist_flag.svg/220px-Anarchist_flag.svg.png
Anarcho-commies want all flags to be burn and replaced with the Anarcho-commie flag :rolleyes:

[NoOneIsIllegal]

I didn't say all flags, BUT IF YOU INSIST ;)

[ImStalinist]

I didn't say all flags, BUT IF YOU INSIST ;)
Oh crap, don't steal my demarchist flag than burn it(p. s. I am thinking about becoming an anarcho-commie ;) really).

[06hurdwp]

The Confederate flag represents everything that is wrong with humanity. Wearing a confederate shirt is comparable to wearing Nazi uniform.

[Blake's Baby]

PS, that's an Anarcho-syndicalist flag, not an Anarchist-communist flag. Anarchist-communists generally use a black flag. Or sometimes, when they're being provocative, they use a red one.

Oh yeah, I'd destroy all flags except those that have no national connotations at all. So red, black and black-and-red are OK as far as I'm concerned, but as the working class has no country, it has no national flags either.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

I love the black and red flag, but seeing a pure red flag is beautiful as well.

A lot of nation's flags are ugly anyway. Putting aside what it stands for and its history, confederate flag is ugly as hell.

[S.Artesian]

Hate it, tolerate it, love it?


Burn it. Arrest anybody displaying that homage to the slaveholders' rebellion.

If the US Northern bourgeoisie had an ounce of self-respect they would never have allowed it to be displayed again; of course, then they would have disqualified all the Southern redemptionist governments, destroyed the plantation system, provided land to the former slaves, and exterminated the terrorist bands of the KKK, the Knights of the White Camelia, etc., and puh--lease, the bourgeoisie were never that revolutionaryl and certainly not in 1868.

[Tim Finnegan]

Oh yeah, I'd destroy all flags except those that have no national connotations at all. So red, black and black-and-red are OK as far as I'm concerned, but as the working class has no country, it has no national flags either.
I'm guessing that you're not a member of a minority nationality?

[ZrianKobani]

Burn it. Arrest anybody displaying that homage to the slaveholders' rebellion.

Are you so committed to the cause that you will advocate suppression in it's name and thereby undo all that it stands for?

Free speech and expression is universal human right and no ideology or reasoning can justify supressing or regulating it.

[cogar66]

Who cares? I'm not for banning it, both the Union and the Confederacy sucked. It's not like either cared for the rights of slaves. It's a fucking flag. It's like the "N" word, it only has power if you let it have power. Ignore it, and fight the people who support the ideology.

[Blake's Baby]

Yeah it can. Do I have the right to call for you to be killed? If I do, then I overcome your right of free speech; if I don't, my right of free speech has been curtailed.

[sattvika]

As an ideological capitalist, I don't believe in flags (or nations) and think that nationalism is downright dangerous, so I disagree with all flags.

However, from a purely aesthetic point of view I think that the Confederate flag is a much better design than what the US uses now. It's much more visually appealing.

[cogar66]

Yeah it can. Do I have the right to call for you to be killed? If I do, then I overcome your right of free speech; if I don't, my right of free speech has been curtailed.

I'm pretty sure people say "I'LL KILL HIM" all the time. It's the action that matters, not thoughtcrime.

[Blake's Baby]

I'm guessing that you're not a member of a minority nationality?

Are you guessing that there Tim?

Wrong. But I don't define my identity around it. I'm a human being and a socialist, and any local flavour I have is irrelevant. I am no more concerned about the specificities of where I or my grandparents were born than I am about the time of my birth. I amn not going to join the January Liberation Army or declare that the Capricorn Flag is better than any other.

Luckily, my national identity doesn't make me stand out where I am, because I look like a lot of other people in Britain and to be honest I also live in a cosmopolitan city. So even if I stood out a bit it wouldn't be very noticable here.

But it's totally irrelevant. Are you seriously claiming that no member of an ethnic minority can support internationalism? Rosa Luxemburg was a Pole, a country divided between Russia and Germany, and she was the one that most coherently demolished the idea of national specificity in socialism.

[Blake's Baby]

I'm pretty sure people say "I'LL KILL HIM" all the time. It's the action that matters, not thoughtcrime.

In which case he shouldn't object to people excercising their freedom of speech, eg by saying 'everyone that flies a confederate flag should be killed'. In fact, he should be applauding them excercising their 'democratic human right to free speech' or whatever the liberal bullshit phrase was.

Either free speech is real, in which case 'kill Confederate mofos' is free speech, or free speech isn't real, in which case 'oh you're violating my rights to free speech' is meaningless.

[The_Outernationalist]

...it belongs in a museum in an exhibit about the civil war, not on flag poles.

[cogar66]

In which case he shouldn't object to people excercising their freedom of speech, eg by saying 'everyone that flies a confederate flag should be killed'. In fact, he should be applauding them excercising their 'democratic human right to free speech' or whatever the liberal bullshit phrase was.

Either free speech is real, in which case 'kill Confederate mofos' is free speech, or free speech isn't real, in which case 'oh you're violating my rights to free speech' is meaningless.

I don't disagree that he shouldn't object with you expressing that opinion. Although he can object to your opinion itself. You don't have a right to not have people disagree with you. So if you say "KILL ALL DEM CONFEDERATE FLAG WAVERS!" he is well within his rights to say "That's a pretty stupid position".

[Tim Finnegan]

Are you guessing that there Tim?

Wrong. But I don't define my identity around it. I'm a human being and a socialist, and any local flavour I have is irrelevant. I am no more concerned about the specificities of where I or my grandparents were born than I am about the time of my birth. I amn not going to join the January Liberation Army or declare that the Capricorn Flag is better than any other.

Luckily, my national identity doesn't make me stand out where I am, because I look like a lot of other people in Britain and to be honest I also live in a cosmopolitan city. So even if I stood out a bit it wouldn't be very noticable here.

But it's totally irrelevant. Are you seriously claiming that no member of an ethnic minority can support internationalism? Rosa Luxemburg was a Pole, a country divided between Russia and Germany, and she was the one that most coherently demolished the idea of national specificity in socialism.
I'm suggesting that a Scots, Welsh or Cornish person may object to your cheerful erasure of their already precarious identity in favour of an "internationalism" which, when constructed in the apparently simplistic terms which you offer, constitutes a complacency in the regional hegemony of certain dominant cultural groups, in this case of South-Eastern England over the rest of the British Isles.

You don't have to be a bourgeois nationalist to see something in the Saltire, Y Ddraig Goch or the Baner Peran worth conserving.

[Blake's Baby]

Sorry Tim, you have to at least be infected with the bourgeois nationalist virus. Don't worry, there is a cure. Realising that socialism doesn't require believing in national myths is a good start. From despising England as an 'oppressor nation' (what? Despising England? Surely I should be supporting English nationalism against evil European hegemony, or American Imperialism, or something), I also came to realise that Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Yorkshirian, and all the other little 'anti-English' nationalisms were just as shit.

Get rid of all of them. I don't care if in the future the idea of 'national identity' is something we learn about history books, no one cares where they or anyone else were born, and we all write Chinese. In fact I think that would be awesome.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Burn em all.

[S.Artesian]

Are you so committed to the cause that you will advocate suppression in it's name and thereby undo all that it stands for?

Free speech and expression is universal human right and no ideology or reasoning can justify supressing or regulating it.


No, speech and expression that promote slavery, racial segregation, attacks on people of color is not a human right.

We are not involved in a battle of "expression." We are engaged in a class struggle where the most recidivist elements proclaim their allegiance to the symbols of past torture, murder, and destruction of human beings.

The flag is a flag of a slaveholders' rebellion; a traitorous attack by a confederacy of traitors intent on maintaining a slaveholder economy in which they could own human beings, breed them for their future labor supply, rape them if they so desired, kill them with impunity, and, at the very least, work them to death.

You can talk all you want about free speech, but in so doing you simply ignore concretely who the people are displaying this flag, why they display, and what they intend to do in the future.

You feel like lining up to be a hot lunch for these reactionary scumbags-- go do it on your own.

A revolutionary organization will oppose the display of the slaveholders' flag and will actively suppress organizations promoting the ideology of Southern redemptionism.

[ZrianKobani]

Yeah it can. Do I have the right to call for you to be killed? If I do, then I overcome your right of free speech; if I don't, my right of free speech has been curtailed.

You do and should.

[ZrianKobani]

A revolutionary organization will oppose the display of the slaveholders' flag and will actively suppress organizations promoting the ideology of Southern redemptionism. Then the revolution is already dead.

[S.Artesian]

Then the revolution is already dead.


Not hardly. Your world where "free speech" for terrorist night-riders can meet without their sheets but under the protection of the "stars and bars" to recruit new members-- that world exists right now and is the one that needs to die.

Wait, fuck... this is the OI forum. I vowed never to participate in a discussion with the OIers.

Goodbye.

[Blake's Baby]

But I don't want you killed Victor. I haven't said people who fly confederate flags should be killed, I haven't even said confederate flags should be banned.

I'm arguing against your bullshit argument that calling for the banning of confederate flags is a violation of eternal principles of free speech. It isn't - freedom is always freedom for the one who disagrees. Either we have the right to say 'burn all confederate flags and kill or imprison those who wave them', or there is no free speech. You chose.

PS 'then the revolution is already dead, if Texans can't hold onto a flag that was on the losing side 150 years ago...'. Fucking hilarious, that made me cry with laughter. Seriously, dude, get over it. You lost. The world moves on. We've had all sorts of shit happen since then, the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, Kronstadt, Shanghai, the Hungarian Uprising, May '68, the Hot Autumn, Poland 1980, the Arab Spring... you know, inportant world-shaking stuff. Not a faction-fight inside the American bourgeoisie.

[ZrianKobani]

I'm of the persuasion that people should be allowed to both protest against the flag and fly it as they wish.

It's not about the flag, it's about the principle behind it: first you ban the rebel flag because of how you feel about it; then maybe someday, you ban the Irish flag because you disagree with the IRA's tactics. It's a slippery slope and if you ban one, what's to stop another, and another, until freedom of expression is regulated according to political ideology and violators are gulaged.

I am a Socialist and I fight for the day people will control that which effects their living but never will I support the suppression of any ideology, philosophy, symbolism, theology, etc. Free speech must be universal or the revolution is dead before it ever took it's first breath.

[Tim Finnegan]

Sorry Tim, you have to at least be infected with the bourgeois nationalist virus. Don't worry, there is a cure. Realising that socialism doesn't require believing in national myths is a good start. From despising England as an 'oppressor nation' (what? Despising England? Surely I should be supporting English nationalism against evil European hegemony, or American Imperialism, or something), I also came to realise that Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Yorkshirian, and all the other little 'anti-English' nationalisms were just as shit.

Get rid of all of them. I don't care if in the future the idea of 'national identity' is something we learn about history books, no one cares where they or anyone else were born, and we all write Chinese. In fact I think that would be awesome.
If you really find yourself incapable of distinguishing between the advocacy of cultural autonomy, and the advocacy of bourgeois nationalism, then I'm really not sure that there's a productive discussion that can be had here.

(And, just for future reference, please don't insist on this mischaracterisation of cultural identity as "were you were born". You know full well that it's more complex than that.)


I'm of the persuasion that people should be allowed to both protest against the flag and fly it as they wish.

It's not about the flag, it's about the principle behind it: first you ban the rebel flag because of how you feel about it; then maybe someday, you ban the Irish flag because you disagree with the IRA's tactics. It's a slippery slope and if you ban one, what's to stop another, and another, until freedom of expression is regulated according to political ideology and violators are gulaged.
I'm really not sure that the logic of the slippery slope applies, in this case. The Confederate flag isn't simply a run of the mill national flag that acquired some negative associations over time, as the American flag has done, it was the purpose-designed banner of an oligarchical white supremacist slave-state, consciously symbolising, among other things, oligarchy, white supremacy and slavery. Can you not see how that lends it a rather unique character?

(Not that I'm entirely on board the "suppress things I don't like" wagon, I'm just observing the nuances here.)

[Revolution starts with U]

If you fly the confederate flag, you're not a socialist. End of story. You can be against the banning of it. You can be for southern heritage. If the confederate flag is something you support, than you support slavery. There is no logical way to deny that.
My evidence: the first 4 states to secceed did so expressly on the reason of defending and upholding the slave system and the oppression of the "negro race."

[tachosomoza]

Burn that worthless fucking rag. The South lost. Get over it.

http://www.theplatform.info/utility/rssimage?id=3286-1

[28350]

finish the civil war

[727Goon]

I'm a racist at heart so I love it

Fixed that for you.

[Desperado]

Symbols are nothing without meaning nor context, and most non-blatantly political flags will have quite varying meanings and context (and even within the solely political sphere - such as the hammer and sickle - we know it varies). When the confederate flag is used by racist idiots who wish to keep blacks out or down, I'll despise it. When used (although I concede sadly much less often) for other reasons such as benign regional identity as Finnegan suggested, I hardly care.

When the Union Jack is flown by "progressive patriots" such as Billy Bragg, I see it as quite beautiful, or as simply an association with our idiosyncratic Britishness (something even as a strongly identifying Welshman I accept exists) - our love of tea or obsession with the weather, I'm fine. When used as simply as a sign of unquestionable loyalty to the British state or royalty, or as pride in our disgusting imperial history, or some symbol of homogeneity and intolerance to the other "non-British" things (be it Welsh, Scottish, Irish or the even worse racist ways in which the BNP uses it) I want to rip it from wherever it's hanging.

Prejudice against a symbol is pointless.

[Blake's Baby]

If you really find yourself incapable of distinguishing between the advocacy of cultural autonomy, and the advocacy of bourgeois nationalism, then I'm really not sure that there's a productive discussion that can be had here.

(And, just for future reference, please don't insist on this mischaracterisation of cultural identity as "were you were born". You know full well that it's more complex than that.)

...

Identity, autonomy... my identity is not predicated on notions of 'heritage'. It's predicated on being a member of the worldwide working class. I identify as much with the French and Russian (and English) workers as I do with the Scottish and Irish workers who are my ancestors, and for the same reasons - because they were working people struggling against oppression; I don't identify at all with the Scottish and Irish bourgeoisies and their nation-building mythologies.

If you don't want to discuss the fact that not all people of Scots or Irish heritage feel an identity with Scotland or Ireland, and some of us believe that such notions are divisive and perpetuate divisions in the working class, so be it.

In my sig it says 'No War but the Class War - Destroy All Nations' and I hold to those slogans (good Gaelic word that, but I would be just as impressed if it were French or Swaheli). The right of nations to self-determination is the right to be oppressed by people with the same accent or hair colour. Whoop de fucking doo. It's totally irrelevant to workers who their boss is; it's totally irrelevant to the world revolution what people's national ethnic or cultural background is.

Would the Russian revolution have been different if, instead of being a Polish Jew, Trotsky had been a Ukrainian Jew? Or a Belorussian Jew? Or a half-Volga German half-Tatar from Khazakstan? No it wouldn't. It's so totally beyond relevant that even 'irrelevant' would have a hard time spotting it in the forest of inconsequentiality.

[tachosomoza]

Symbols are nothing without meaning nor context, and most non-blatantly political flags will have quite varying meanings and context (and even within the solely political sphere - such as the hammer and sickle - we know it varies). When the confederate flag is used by racist idiots who wish to keep blacks out or down, I'll despise it. When used (although I concede sadly much less often) for other reasons such as benign regional identity as Finnegan suggested, I hardly care.

When the Union Jack is flown by "progressive patriots" such as Billy Bragg, I see it as quite beautiful, or as simply an association with our idiosyncratic Britishness (something even as a strongly identifying Welshman I accept exists) - our love of tea or obsession with the weather, I'm fine. When used as simply as a sign of unquestionable loyalty to the British state or royalty, or as pride in our disgusting imperial history, or some symbol of homogeneity and intolerance to the other "non-British" things (be it Welsh, Scottish, Irish or the even worse racist ways in which the BNP uses it) I want to rip it from wherever it's hanging.

Prejudice against a symbol is pointless.

The Confederate Flag is often flown in the South under the guise of "regional identity". Blacks and northerners know what's up when they see it. It means "keep the fuck out". Anyone who tells you otherwise is either seriously deluded or a liar. It's a reactionary symbol. The Confederacy was a bourgeois seperatist bloc. Nothing more.

[Desperado]

The Confederate Flag is often flown in the South under the guise of "regional identity". Blacks and northerners know what's up when they see it. It means "keep the fuck out". Anyone who tells you otherwise is either seriously deluded or a liar. It's a reactionary symbol.

Sure. I accept that the claimed meaning doesn't have to be the true intention. But I don't see this in contradiction to anything I said.

[Blake's Baby]

All flags are reactionary except the black, the red, and the red-and-black.

[Desperado]

Identity, autonomy... my identity is not predicated on notions of 'heritage'. It's predicated on being a member of the worldwide working class. I identify as much with the French and Russian (and English) workers as I do with the Scottish and Irish workers who are my ancestors, and for the same reasons - because they were working people struggling against oppression; I don't identify at all with the Scottish and Irish bourgeoisies and their nation-building mythologies.

I feel a "Welsh" identity in that I speak the Welsh language, enjoy Welsh beer, have a Welsh accent and have a similar mindset (on lots of trivial things, naturally) to many of my fellow Welshmen. It's not simply a love - it is undeniably part of what makes me what I am. As Bukanin said, nation's aren't a principle - they're a self-evident fact. I am "proud" in the sense that this gives me much positive inflection (though not in the sense that I feel higher or better than others).

That doesn't stop me from identifying with other workers from all over the world, nor being tolerant (some of the most "nationalist" people I know are the most open towards immigration and refugees).

Nor does it orient me towards the Welsh bourgeoisie nor a fantasy of a Welsh state. I want "autonomy" in so far as that those who wish to enjoy and live their culture are not restricted by capital, the state or any other hierarchy - this is a principle I hold universal for all, whether they're Welshmen (and women) in Wales, Somalis in Cardiff or goths in London.

Your identity cannot be entirely based on the working class, nor your political beliefs - although obviously these are influential factors. You must have things about yourself (trivial or major) that make you who you are which have nothing to do with these things. They are nonetheless part of your identity.

[Desperado]

All flags are reactionary except the black, the red, and the red-and-black.

All non-communist symbols are reactionary. lolwut

[Tim Finnegan]

Identity, autonomy... my identity is not predicated on notions of 'heritage'. It's predicated on being a member of the worldwide working class. I identify as much with the French and Russian (and English) workers as I do with the Scottish and Irish workers who are my ancestors, and for the same reasons - because they were working people struggling against oppression; I don't identify at all with the Scottish and Irish bourgeoisies and their nation-building mythologies.

If you don't want to discuss the fact that not all people of Scots or Irish heritage feel an identity with Scotland or Ireland, and some of us believe that such notions are divisive and perpetuate divisions in the working class, so be it.

In my sig it says 'No War but the Class War - Destroy All Nations' and I hold to those slogans (good Gaelic word that, but I would be just as impressed if it were French or Swaheli). The right of nations to self-determination is the right to be oppressed by people with the same accent or hair colour. Whoop de fucking doo. It's totally irrelevant to workers who their boss is; it's totally irrelevant to the world revolution what people's national ethnic or cultural background is.

Would the Russian revolution have been different if, instead of being a Polish Jew, Trotsky had been a Ukrainian Jew? Or a Belorussian Jew? Or a half-Volga German half-Tatar from Khazakstan? No it wouldn't. It's so totally beyond relevant that even 'irrelevant' would have a hard time spotting it in the forest of inconsequentiality.
I already told you, I'm not going to debate this with you if you insist on mischaracterising my position in this fashion (or should I say, in these numerous fashions?).

[Blake's Baby]

All non-communist symbols are reactionary. lolwut

No, just symbols of national identity. The symbol for 'telephone' or 'male toilet' is alright. If you like I could think of maybe, ooh, six more symbols that are OK.

Tim: that's fine, stop posting any time you like. Or explain to us how 'cultural autonomy' is really a revolutionary thing and not a false community that divides people. Either way. Just don't post to say 'I'm not saying anything' because it's oxymoronic.

[ZrianKobani]

I'm really not sure that the logic of the slippery slope applies, in this case. The Confederate flag isn't simply a run of the mill national flag that acquired some negative associations over time, as the American flag has done, it was the purpose-designed banner of an oligarchical white supremacist slave-state, consciously symbolising, among other things, oligarchy, white supremacy and slavery. Can you not see how that lends it a rather unique character?

(Not that I'm entirely on board the "suppress things I don't like" wagon, I'm just observing the nuances here.)

I'm not denying or defending it's history. Slavery goes against my politics as much as suppression does and the worth of a human is infinitely more valuable than that of any flag. What needs to be recognized is that if we are seeking to build a truly free society, me must allow room for the ideas we love and the ideas we hate.

[ZrianKobani]

Fixed that for you.
Points for originality :thumbup:

[Desperado]

No, just symbols of national identity. The symbol for 'telephone' or 'male toilet' is alright. If you like I could think of maybe, ooh, six more symbols that are OK.


What makes a "nation" so elementary different from say, goths? By glorifying the nation as something other than simply a rough (and usually geographical) cultural group you are in fact legitimising the nation-state rhetoric of our oppressors.

[WeAreReborn]

I'm of the persuasion that people should be allowed to both protest against the flag and fly it as they wish.

It's not about the flag, it's about the principle behind it: first you ban the rebel flag because of how you feel about it; then maybe someday, you ban the Irish flag because you disagree with the IRA's tactics. It's a slippery slope and if you ban one, what's to stop another, and another, until freedom of expression is regulated according to political ideology and violators are gulaged.

I am a Socialist and I fight for the day people will control that which effects their living but never will I support the suppression of any ideology, philosophy, symbolism, theology, etc. Free speech must be universal or the revolution is dead before it ever took it's first breath.
The problem isn't the tactics used by the CSA. The problem is the ONLY reason it was formed was because it wanted to have slaves. If you have read the CSA constitution it gives states LESS rights in a few regards, a little more in some. So clearly state rights was not the factor. Yet you claimed that it was because ideals during the revolution. What ideas are that? The balance between liberty and authority? Because both had strong federal governments. Stop making excuses. The CSA was a racist and slave loving state. It had nothing to do with liberty or state rights, those are distractions.

[Tim Finnegan]

Tim: that's fine, stop posting any time you like. Or explain to us how 'cultural autonomy' is really a revolutionary thing and not a false community that divides people. Either way.
Because people have shared cultural traditions, and an entitlement to preserve and celebrate those traditions, which inevitably means that those shared traditions will begin to inform peoples social identity. It's not a matter of some abstract "heritage", although I would hardly dismiss that as legitimate, but of the lived experience of belonging to a particular culture. These don't have to be unitary, over-riding, "national" identity, in the bourgeois sense- and, in fact, I would argue that the logical consequence of my position demands the recognition of a variety of intersecting cultural identities, be they regional, ethnic, or otherwise- and to dismiss any non-hegemonic cultural identity as "divisive" and "bourgeois" is, in objective terms, to defend the hegemonic status of a particular cultural tradition. Or do you really think, to pick a personal example, that scorning Scottish culture will in practice have any result other than the acceleration of Anglicisation?


Just don't post to say 'I'm not saying anything' because it's oxymoronic.Well, I'd have to start, wouldn't I? The "if", which you may notice is perched quite neatly in the middle of my last post, was not merely decorative.

[ZrianKobani]

The problem isn't the tactics used by the CSA. The problem is the ONLY reason it was formed was because it wanted to have slaves. If you have read the CSA constitution it gives states LESS rights in a few regards, a little more in some. So clearly state rights was not the factor. Yet you claimed that it was because ideals during the revolution. What ideas are that? The balance between liberty and authority? Because both had strong federal governments. Stop making excuses. The CSA was a racist and slave loving state. It had nothing to do with liberty or state rights, those are distractions.

You're contextualizing; I mentioned the IRA only as an example that if you are against something that doesn't give you the right to suppress it.

Ideals are how I interpret the flag but it's been pushed into a free speech issue and that's what takes precedent: no politic or ideology should ever be suppressed, period.

[#FF0000]

Nah you're basically dumb as shit if you think the "Confederate flag" is okay.

p.s. it's the navy jack. the fact that this common error is endlessly repeated along with the "lol civil war = states rights" is proof that southerners are children not to be trusted with their own history.

[Tim Finnegan]

p.s. it's the navy jack. the fact that this common error is endlessly repeated along with the "lol civil war = states rights" is proof that southerners are children not to be trusted with their own history.
http://forum.blu-ray.com/images/smilies/imported/unimpressed.gif

[ZrianKobani]

Nah you're basically dumb as shit


Best worded argument in this entire thread
http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/images/GifGuide/clapping/busey_clapping.gif

[tachosomoza]

Nah you're basically dumb as shit if you think the "Confederate flag" is okay.

p.s. it's the navy jack. the fact that this common error is endlessly repeated along with the "lol civil war = states rights" is proof that southerners are children not to be trusted with their own history.

Nah hol' on dur, that's classism 'cuz yer sayin we ain't smaht cuz we po! Goddamn bourgeois Yankee trash. :lol:

[#FF0000]

http://forum.blu-ray.com/images/smilies/imported/unimpressed.gif

Yup.


Nah hol' on dur, that's classism 'cuz yer sayin we ain't smaht cuz we po! Goddamn bourgeois Yankee trash. :lol:

Lame.

[#FF0000]

Best worded argument in this entire thread

It's rare that I say this but it really is just that simple. I mean, you can fly it if you want. There's no law against being a dumb fuck. You just can't get pissy when people assume you're a racist or something because of it, because regardless of what the folks who fly it might think it's represents (lol heritage), to a whole lot more it represents some far worse (lol heritage of slavery/jim crow/literal anti-black anti-northern death squads)

[ZrianKobani]

You just can't get pissy when people assume you're a racist or something because of it, because regardless of what the folks who fly it might think it's represents (lol heritage), to a whole lot more it represents some far worse (lol heritage of horrendous racism)

It means to me what it means to me and what anyone else things doesn't matter.

[PhoenixAsh]

Any sort of symbol is going to be carrying the burdern of its history and be tainted or gloryfied by how it was used and for what it was used....wether it was intentional or not.

And yes...in this case it is a symbol of slavery, racism and oppression....just as much as for Southern Independence...which was pretty much also based on the wish to perpetuate slavery. This can not be washed away...there is no detergent strong enough to wash it out and disassociate the flag with its odious past.

So ban it. Put it in a museum as a horrible reminder and never use it again. No matter how cool you think it may look.

If you want to express your Southern identity...whatever that may be...find another symbol.

[#FF0000]

It means to me what it means to me and what anyone else things doesn't matter.

That's fine, but like I said, you're totally in the wrong if you ever get pissed because people think you're 1) A dumb fuck who doesn't know anything about history and/or 2) A racist.

[tachosomoza]

It means to me what it means to me and what anyone else things doesn't matter.

Well I guess it wont matter when you get your ass kicked for supporting a shitty cause that was lost 200 years ago. Fuck you.

[ZrianKobani]

Any sort of symbol is going to be carrying the burden of its history and be tainted or glorified by how it was used and for what it was used....whether it was intentional or not.

And yes...in this case it is a symbol of slavery, racism and oppression....just as much as for Southern Independence...which was pretty much also based on the wish to perpetuate slavery. This can not be washed away...there is no detergent strong enough to wash it out and disassociate the flag with its odious past.

So ban it. Put it in a museum as a horrible reminder and never use it again. No matter how cool you think it may look.

If you want to express your Southern identity...whatever that may be...find another symbol. Even if I disagree, this is by far the best post of the thread; calm, concise, to the point, and understanding of both sides.

[ZrianKobani]

That's fine, but like I said, you're totally in the wrong if you ever get pissed because people think you're 1) A dumb fuck who doesn't know anything about history and/or 2) A racist.
Duly noted.

[ZrianKobani]

Well I guess it wont matter when you get your ass kicked for supporting a shitty cause that was lost 200 years ago. Fuck you. Guess so ;)

[incogweedo]

To give you my opinion, I'll tell you a little story. My grandfather is an all american country boy conservative cowboy redneck, and he is very much into the civil war (he owns 100+ books on the subject). He has a giant-ass flag pole in which he hangs an american flag, a Pennsylvania flag, and on the bottom of the two, a confederate flag. 2 Christmas's ago, the whole family (including me) went to his house for holiday visits etc etc. After everyone left, he couldn't figure out where the pile of ashes came from and where the 'rebel' flag went.

[cogar66]

It's a symbol. It symbolizes something stupid. Burn the flag, don't ban it. Kay?

[#FF0000]

I am all for people flying the Confederate flag.

However, I think it's only acceptable if the flag is at all times in the shadow of a solid gold statue of William Tecumseh Sherman which is to be no less than twice the height of the flag pole.

Every one of these statues must be facing towards Savannah, Georgia

[tachosomoza]

This thread is full of Yankees. :crying:

[#FF0000]

Full disclosure: I was born a Reb.

[tachosomoza]

Massachusetts Yankee here. And I'm black, so I guess I'd object even if I was born in Alabam.:lol:

[#FF0000]

You know while we're talking about this, southern dumb fucks are usually right about one thing -- Northerners are waaaaaaay too smug about being on the "right side" of the Civil War and seem to know fuck all about how horrible racism was in the North at the time as well. See: New York City Draft Riots.

[tachosomoza]

The Draft Riots were instigated by poor Irish immigrants who saw freed slaves as competition for scarce jobs, along with being representatives of the people they were being drafted to go fight for simply because they looked like them.

[ZrianKobani]

You know while we're talking about this, southern dumb fucks are usually right about one thing -- Northerners are waaaaaaay too smug about being on the "right side" of the Civil War and seem to know fuck all about how horrible racism was in the North at the time as well. See: New York City Draft Riots.
Four words, Gangs of New York.

[Johnny Kerosene]

Burn it. Along with every other flag. With no flags it's more difficult to tell the different nations apart, thus bringing humankind closer to unity. But the confederate flag is one of those that really needs to be burned because of what it represents, as a way of saying "Fuck your oppressive racist bullshit."

[#FF0000]

Four words, Gangs of New York.

The critics of that movie were just as shitty at history, iirc.

[Le Libérer]

Well I guess it wont matter when you get your ass kicked for supporting a shitty cause that was lost 200 years ago. Fuck you.

Verbal warning for flaming. Please no fuck yous.

[bcbm]

You know while we're talking about this, southern dumb fucks are usually right about one thing -- Northerners are waaaaaaay too smug about being on the "right side" of the Civil War and seem to know fuck all about how horrible racism was in the North at the time as well. See: New York City Draft Riots.

my state was going to secede before the civil war because it didn't want to be part of a country that had slavery. i'll be smug as i please

[Le Libérer]

feels the death of a thread pending.....

[bcbm]

in before-

[Tim Finnegan]

Burn it. Along with every other flag. With no flags it's more difficult to tell the different nations apart, thus bringing humankind closer to unity.
I think it tends to be the (percieved) existence of nations that dictate flags, rather than the other way around. :confused:

[bcbm]

dammit

[AmericanCommie421]

In my opinion it all depends on how it's being used. If it's being used as a symbol of hate and oppression than no. But if it's being used as a southern cultural, regional, or heritage symbol than its cool. Also, being from the south myself, thats how i see it used the most.

[Coach Trotsky]

Question: Whom and/or What is supposed to ban the Confederate flag?

[ImStalinist]

Verbal warning for flaming. Please no fuck yous.
You can't say it either ;)

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

[ImStalinist]

This thread is full of Yankees. :crying:
We Yankees can beat you Red Sox any day, wait, wrong Yankee.

[Summerspeaker]

There's nothing positive to say about it. The flag has been a symbol of white supremacy from the start. But it's not so terribly different from the stars and stripes or the banners of other empires.

[Johnny Kerosene]

This thread is full of Yankees. :crying:

I'm a southerner.

[Weezer]

I'm sorry, but the Confederate flag looks sooooooo badass. :blushing:

Too bad the people that have it tattooed on their bodies or embodied on their belts aren't quite as badass as the flag itself.

[Coach Trotsky]

Can we tear down/ban/burn the Stars and Stripes also, along with the Confederate Flag? Please?

[Johnny Kerosene]

Question: Whom and/or What is supposed to ban the Confederate flag?

The new Confederate states of America will ban their own Flag after our glorious revolution. That's the Revolution we're all fighting for right?:tongue_smilie:

[Misanthrope]

Fuck flags, fuck nations. Fuck what the confederacy stood for and fuck their flag. Oh and fuck southern nationalists.

[Hebrew Hammer]

I voted for both the Union and Confederacy sucked. The Union was not the Moses of African slaves like it is portrayed in the American history textbooks and was totally complicit in slavery. Some of the Northern cities whom benefited financially from slavery wanted to succeed from the Union as well. Fuck the confederate flag though, in modern times it's mainly used a symbol for hate and bigotry, I don't by this "heritage," shit at all.

[Zav]

It is certainly prettier than the Union flag, but both the Union and the Confederacy were terrible in there different ways.

[Vendetta]

I live in South Carolina.

I've kinda gotten used to seeing it every fucking where.

[Coach Trotsky]

The new Confederate states of America will ban their own Flag after our glorious revolution. That's the Revolution we're all fighting for right?:tongue_smilie:
No, I'm really looking to see who'll give the bourgeois/petty bourgeois liberal answer, and who'll give a revolutionary socialist answer.

There is a big difference between those two answers.

[Geiseric]

Im not so much an enemy of the flag as i am of the implication. the flag itself is just a cool symbol, but when people say the south will rise again im never 100 percent what they mean, i assume they mean ''slavery will rise again!'' but im probably wrong. banning the flag wont do anything, itll just make a bunch of media attention and tea party douchebags will throw a shitstorm all over the media while there are revolutions, wars, oppression and while the stocks drop 2000000000 points. usually people with confed. flags are just ignorant.

[tachosomoza]

Im not so much an enemy of the flag as i am of the implication. the flag itself is just a cool symbol, but when people say the south will rise again im never 100 percent what they mean, i assume they mean ''slavery will rise again!'' but im probably wrong. banning the flag wont do anything, itll just make a bunch of media attention and tea party douchebags will throw a shitstorm all over the media while there are revolutions, wars, oppression and while the stocks drop 2000000000 points. usually people with confed. flags are just ignorant.

Usually, from my own dealings with Southerners, saying that the South will rise again means that the speaker literally thinks that the South will rise again and people will be out shooting. It's extremely sad that poor Southerners are so enthralled by this garbage when they could be taking steps to ensure their own liberation and that of others in similar positions, instead of fighting to hold on to what essentially is the last reminder of a bourgeois separatist movement.

[Lee Van Cleef]

I see a lot of people in this thread deriding southerners as "ignorant," "racist," "rednecks," "stupid," and the like. I would encourage fellow leftists to resist this hegemonic belittlement of a minority culture.

As someone who grew up in the Upper South, I have to say that most of the people who display the Confederate flag do so as a display of regional and cultural pride. It is one way in which people choose to reject the negative conception of southerners that has been propagated by the dominant culture ever since the Civil War. On top of cultural issues, there is no denying that the nation's general economic interests has long been at odds with those of the South.

I don't condone flying the Confederate flag, but I understand why people do. As leftists, it is vital for all of us to fully understand the social, cultural, and economic reasons behind certain things that we may not agree with, before taking a narrow view. Slavery and racism are far from the first things I think of when I see the flag. Certainly, some racists do use it as a symbol, but they are definitely a minority.

Though when I see people in Michigan or New Jersey displaying Confederate symbolism, I do wonder just what their intentions are.

[tachosomoza]

I see a lot of people in this thread deriding southerners as "ignorant," "racist," "rednecks," "stupid," and the like. I would encourage fellow leftists to resist this hegemonic belittlement of a minority culture.

As someone who grew up in the Upper South, I have to say that most of the people who display the Confederate flag do so as a display of regional and cultural pride. It is one way in which people choose to reject the negative conception of southerners that has been propagated by the dominant culture ever since the Civil War. On top of cultural issues, there is no denying that the nation's general economic interests has long been at odds with those of the South.

I don't condone flying the Confederate flag, but I understand why people do. As leftists, it is vital for all of us to fully understand the social, cultural, and economic reasons behind certain things that we may not agree with, before taking a narrow view. Slavery and racism are far from the first things I think of when I see the flag. Certainly, some racists do use it as a symbol, but they are definitely a minority.

Though when I see people in Michigan or New Jersey displaying Confederate symbolism, I do wonder just what their intentions are.

Honestly, I think all of us Americans in here are extremely biased on the whole affair. As a leftist, I've observed the use of the Confederate flag, and have come to the unfortunate conclusion that it is a symbol that has been adopted by the Southern white section of the proletariat as a symbol of their desire to remain bourgeois lapdogs simply because of their skin color. However, you can see why I'd object even if I was a Tea Partier, simply by virtue of me being an African American and a Northerner. People who support the Rebel flag should think about what it means for people who aren't from the South or whose ancestors very possibly may have died with that thing in their faces. You see the Rebel flag and see Lynrd Skynrd, while a black person or a Northerner sees the Rebel flag and sees

http://www.corbisimages.com/images/67/96217E0B-04D7-424E-AE24-F19463356807/BE051632.jpg

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I'd try and dodge the draft regardless of where I was and if I was in the South I'd help smuggle slaves up North.

Because communists in the South fought against the Confederacy because they realized how bad of an institution slavery was, just saying. Also correct me if I'm wrong here. You say the North was bad for not allowing the South to seceed but wasn't it the South that attacked the North first? Just sayin...

[ZrianKobani]

Because communists in the South fought against the Confederacy because they realized how bad of an institution slavery was, just saying. Also correct me if I'm wrong here. You say the North was bad for not allowing the South to seceed but wasn't it the South that attacked the North first? Just sayin... The Union violated Dixie territory in an attempt to retake federal property that was within Confederate borders and this was taken as an act of war.

[ZrianKobani]

We Yankees can beat you Red Sox any day, wait, wrong Yankee.

We Rangers can beat you both \o/

[bezdomni]

Burn all flags.

[Agent Ducky]

I put that they both sucked O_o.... And I wouldn't say ban a flag. It's just a symbol tbh.

[Lee Van Cleef]

Honestly, I think all of us Americans in here are extremely biased on the whole affair. As a leftist, I've observed the use of the Confederate flag, and have come to the unfortunate conclusion that it is a symbol that has been adopted by the Southern white section of the proletariat as a symbol of their desire to remain bourgeois lapdogs simply because of their skin color. However, you can see why I'd object even if I was a Tea Partier, simply by virtue of me being an African American and a Northerner. People who support the Rebel flag should think about what it means for people who aren't from the South or whose ancestors very possibly may have died with that thing in their faces. You see the Rebel flag and see Lynrd Skynrd, while a black person or a Northerner sees the Rebel flag and sees
I agree with you 100%, and that is basically the point I was trying to make in my post. I was really trying to respond to all the people saying that everyone who has a T-shirt with a Confederate flag on it must want slavery to come back, or those people who say the flag should be banned outright.

I see no good in the Confederate flag, but being unduly harsh on those who do only serves to alienate a huge section of the working class. Instead of writing off workers who might channel their frustrations into things we find mildly objectionable, we should work with them to build forms of progressive, positive resistance.

[RGacky3]

If you are into the confederate flag and from the south maybe your just really proud of being from the south.

If your NOT from the south, your most definately a racist.

[Hebrew Hammer]

I put that they both sucked O_o.... And I wouldn't say ban a flag. It's just a symbol tbh.

I don't really care if it gets banned or not, I would like for it to be banned because within the current context in which it's being used it's pretty clear as to what it represents, racism and reactionary politics but I'm not exactly pushing for it. If I see some confederate flag and I know it's being used and is no different than some Nazi flag, yeah, I'll rip it down and destroy it or if it's painted or something of that nature, deface it. I don't think we (especially as revolutionary Socialists) should stand by or allow open bigotry or racism, even if it seems stupid or trival.

[ComradeMan]

I can understand the objections to the Confederate flag however to most I think it only represents being from the South, Dukes of Hazard and Burt Reynolds films.... not necessarily the KKK or that.

One has to ask though, what does the "Yankee" flag represent? Like if you're a Native American for example? Or Latin-American?

On the whole though, I have always found flags rather silly and even sillier all of the silliness that surrounds....err.... a piece of cloth.

[RGacky3]

I don't really care if it gets banned or not, I would like for it to be banned because within the current context in which it's being used it's pretty clear as to what it represents, racism and reactionary politics but I'm not exactly pushing for it. If I see some confederate flag and I know it's being used and is no different than some Nazi flag, yeah, I'll rip it down and destroy it or if it's painted or something of that nature, deface it. I don't think we (especially as revolutionary Socialists) should stand by or allow open bigotry or racism, even if it seems stupid or trival.

So I take it you don't care about freedom of speach.

[PhoenixAsh]

True, many flags have a negative connotation for some. The American flag can be considered to be a symbol for capitalism and imperialism. The question is if this is unique doctrine for the US or just more prevalent. Whatever the case it was not specifically designed to advocate a specific cause like slavery or even imperialism and therefore is not utterly linked with it other than by association.

The Southern Cross however is specifically created to be linked with the Southern cause of succession and thereby all the underlying causes including the major motivation of slavery perpetuation.

As I remember the first Southern Flag was simply red, white and red bars with a cricle of stars in a blue square. The Southern Cross was later adopted to specifically destinguish troops from the union....and therefore is explicitly linked with the Confederacies ideals since its creation is a rallying symbol for those in the confederacy.

[Book O'Dead]

I'm not justifying or defending slavery but I will defend secession and the right of a state or province to break from a nation-state if it sees fit to do so.

Then you are a nationalist and an anti-unionist, whereas I am an internationalist and a pro-unionist. You are in favor of division, separation and more political states; I am in favor of the unity of my class (and, ultimately, the entire human race), the destruction of all national boundaries and the emancipation of humanity from the shackles of private property and exploitation.

On the one hand you claim to not "justify or defend slavery", on the other you proclaim your support for political jurisdictions--such as exist today--to unilaterally secede if they cannot have their way. With that your opinions make you an anti-democratic ideologue as well. On that basis alone your restriction in this forum seems entirey justified.


As to Lincoln, he didn't care anymore for black people than Davis did and from what I can tell, only went to war to preserve his own power.

As is typical f people who think as you do, your selective ignorance of history is appalling. I'll grant that Lincoln may not have openly expressed a desire to free the slaves from their bondange and I'll even concede that his feelings toward African Americans was one of racism typical of the times, but throughout his career as far back as 1857, he was telling anyone that would listen that a "house divided cannot stand", and that the single greatest issue that divided the American republic was the moral question of slavery.

Undoubtedly Lincoln was an ambitious man who aimed at becoming president but his response to Southern attacks and his destruction of the South's "peculiar" institution was motivated not by personal ambition but a patriotism unequaled by any of his predecessors.

[Revolution starts with U]

Didn't Engels say something along the lines of "we support revolutions that favor the working class and oppose the others?"
Saying you support the right of the south to cede (based on the defense of slavery) is just liberalism.
Also, how did the North infringe on the territory of the south? As far as I know, they were just trying to defend one of THEIR forts, which was attacked by the south.
If you want to support southern heritage, eat biscuits and gravy. That shit is delicious. The Confederate flag is a symbol of slavery. It never was anything more, and it never will be.

[Misanthrope]

If you are into the confederate flag and from the south maybe your just really proud of being from the south.


Nationalism: loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups

[Hebrew Hammer]

So I take it you don't care about freedom of speach.

Freedom for who? To do what?

[Blake's Baby]

Haven't we already been through this 'freedom of speech' thing?

If there is freedom of speech, there is freedom to say 'ban the flag'. If you want to take away that person's right to call for the banning of the flag, you don't believe in freedom of speech.

[ZrianKobani]

Then you are a nationalist and an anti-unionist, whereas I am an internationalist and a pro-unionist. You are in favor of division, separation and more political states; I am in favor of the unity of my class (and, ultimately, the entire human race), the destruction of all national boundaries and the emancipation of humanity from the shackles of private property and exploitation.

On the one hand you claim to not "justify or defend slavery", on the other you proclaim your support for political jurisdictions--such as exist today--to unilaterally secede if they cannot have their way. With that your opinions make you an anti-democratic ideologue as well. On that basis alone your restriction in this forum seems entirely justified.



As is typical of people who think as you do, your selective ignorance of history is appalling. I'll grant that Lincoln may not have openly expressed a desire to free the slaves from their bondage and I'll even concede that his feelings toward African Americans was one of racism typical of the times, but throughout his career as far back as 1857, he was telling anyone that would listen that a "house divided cannot stand", and that the single greatest issue that divided the American republic was the moral question of slavery.

Undoubtedly Lincoln was an ambitious man who aimed at becoming president but his response to Southern attacks and his destruction of the South's "peculiar" institution was motivated not by personal ambition but a patriotism unequaled by any of his predecessors.

Secession is a right for all people; I cannot say that Ireland or Vietnam had right to secede from England and France unless I concede that the Confederacy had right to secede from the Union. Secession is anti-Imperialist and is the only reason I still believe in the rebel flag, not slavery which I have consistently pointed out.

You are going on the assumption that I am a democratic-centralist, which I am not; it is better that if a party disagree with a law that they separate and live as they please rather than live miserably and disturb the society they disagree with. If, for example, someone disagrees with a vote made in a worker's co-op, he should go to or start another that will have more chance of voting as he prefers.

That slavery was divisive was common knowledge and understood by most any political commentator at that time. Lincoln's only difference is he won and, as we all know, the winners are always the ones who write the history.

His decision to justify the war on grounds of abolitionism were a political move and didn't come until half-way through the war. I'm glad slavery was abolished as a legal practice, my only wish is that it wouldn't have come at the cost of Southern independence.

[tachosomoza]

Secession is a right for all people; I cannot say that Ireland or Vietnam had right to secede from England and France unless I concede that the Confederacy had right to secede from the Union. Secession is anti-Imperialist and is the only reason I still believe in the rebel flag, not slavery which I have consistently pointed out.

You are going on the assumption that I am a democratic-centralist, which I am not; it is better that if a party disagree with a law that they separate and live as they please rather than live miserably and disturb the society they disagree with. If, for example, someone disagrees with a vote made in a worker's co-op, he should go to or start another that will have more chance of voting as he prefers.

That slavery was divisive was common knowledge and understood by most any political commentator at that time. Lincoln's only difference is he won and, as we all know, the winners are always the ones who write the history.

His decision to justify the war on grounds of abolitionism were a political move and didn't come until half-way through the war. I'm glad slavery was abolished as a legal practice, my only wish is that it wouldn't have come at the cost of Southern independence.

The South wasn't initially conquered by imperialistic aggression. They got pissy because they couldn't have their way. Do you honestly think that the South would have rolled over on slavery if they had been allowed to remain independent? Hell, even after they got back into the Union they kept poor whites and blacks alike in a position tantamount to slavery. Sharecropping, ever heard of it?

[ZrianKobani]

The South wasn't initially conquered by imperialistic aggression. They got pissy because they couldn't have their way. Do you honestly think that the South would have rolled over on slavery if they had been allowed to remain independent? Hell, even after they got back into the Union they kept poor whites and blacks alike in a position tantamount to slavery. Sharecropping, ever heard of it?

"It is better that if a party disagree with a law that they separate and live as they please rather than live miserably and disturb the society they disagree with. If, for example, someone disagrees with a vote made in a worker's co-op, he should go to or start another that will have more chance of voting as he prefers."

Sharecropping had nothing to do with the South and everything to do with capitalists.

I don't deny that the CSA probably would never have given up slavery without being forced but I don't think we should white-wash it by saying the entire war was over slavery or that the Union was an angel of some-sort.

[PhoenixAsh]

Secession is a right for all people; I cannot say that Ireland or Vietnam had right to secede from England and France unless I concede that the Confederacy had right to secede from the Union. Secession is anti-Imperialist and is the only reason I still believe in the rebel flag, not slavery which I have consistently pointed out.

You are going on the assumption that I am a democratic-centralist, which I am not; it is better that if a party disagree with a law that they separate and live as they please rather than live miserably and disturb the society they disagree with. If, for example, someone disagrees with a vote made in a worker's co-op, he should go to or start another that will have more chance of voting as he prefers.

That slavery was divisive was common knowledge and understood by most any political commentator at that time. Lincoln's only difference is he won and, as we all know, the winners are always the ones who write the history.

His decision to justify the war on grounds of abolitionism were a political move and didn't come until half-way through the war. I'm glad slavery was abolished as a legal practice, my only wish is that it wouldn't have come at the cost of Southern independence.


This is imo a non sequentor. The South secceeded over the issue of slavery and its abolition. Its not something that features in the sidelines of the issue. Its the reason why they left the union and why they fought the unions federal interference.

Supporting that fight and the right of self determination can not be seen seperate from the issues that lead up to it or which are its reason. Self determination is nice and all but when you want to do so because you want to repress others and own them as property we really can not be supporting of it.

[CommieTroll]

To me its just a flag, I actually like the look of it. If I can fly my red flag then let them fly their flag, live and let live. I don't agree with what the confederacy stood for but weirdly I like the look of the confederacy rather than the union. I don't think the Confederate flag is as offensive as the flag of Nazi Germany or The Union Jack but I understand why is causes controversy. Thats just my two cents

[ZrianKobani]

This is imo a non sequentor. The South secceeded over the issue of slavery and its abolition. Its not something that features in the sidelines of the issue. Its the reason why they left the union and why they fought the unions federal interference.

Supporting that fight and the right of self determination can not be seen seperate from the issues that lead up to it or which are its reason. Self determination is nice and all but when you want to do so because you want to repress others and own them as property we really can not be supporting of it.
Slavery is only part of it, there's also taxation without representation.

The North was constantly trying to raise taxes on Southerners through high tariffs on imported goods in order to protect the inefficient big businesses in the North. These big businesses could not compete with manufactured goods from England and France with whom the South traded cotton. The South did not have factories and had to import most finished products. The Industrial Revolution allowed England and France to produce and ship across the Atlantic products that were cheaper than the products of Northern manufacturers. When Lincoln was elected President, he and the U.S. Congress immediately passed the Morrill Tariff (the highest import tax in U.S. history), more than doubling the import tax rate from 20% to 47%. This tax served to bankrupt many Southerners. Though the Southern states represented only about 30% of the U.S. population, they paid 80% of the tariffs collected. Oppressive taxes, denial of the states' rights to govern their states, and an unrepresentative federal government pushed the Southern states to legally withdraw from the Union. Since the Southerners had escaped the tax by withdrawing from the Union, the only way the North could collect this oppressive tax was to invade the Confederate States and force them at gunpoint back into the Union. It was to collect this import tax to satisfy his Northern industrialist supporters that Abraham Lincoln invaded the South.


Now, doesn't it sound like a capitalist to concentrate light on one part of the story and leave the rest in the dark? A half-truth is still a lie and the public has been lied to about the Confederacy.

[PhoenixAsh]

Perhaps my friend....you can do with a lesson in history:

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html


Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.


Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.


The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions-- a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith.


The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.

And it goes on...

So no...the MAIN reason was the attack on slavery.

[ZrianKobani]

The position of four states does not speak for a twelve state confederacy.

[tachosomoza]

The position of four states does not speak for a twelve state confederacy.

It can be inferred that the rest of the Confederate states supported the positions of those four, otherwise they wouldn't be in the Confederacy. Face it. The Confederacy was a reactionary institution that was dedicated to the protection of their economic system based on ownership of other human beings and the use of the white proletariat to keep them down.

[PhoenixAsh]

Yes...it does actually...and the rest of the states were no better. Don't hide your head in the sand.

Here is Florida:

http://www.civilwarcauses.org/florida-dec.htm

[PhoenixAsh]

From Virginia State Convention of 1861. Richmond, Va
"The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention, on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution, were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression and the Federal Government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slaveholding States,"

[ZrianKobani]

It can be inferred that the rest of the Confederate states supported the positions of those four, otherwise they wouldn't be in the Confederacy. Face it. The Confederacy was a reactionary institution that was dedicated to the protection of their economic system based on ownership of other human beings and the use of the white proletariat to keep them down.
When building a new government, one will take any aid possible. Mississippi, Texas, etc. provided territory, finance and man-power; why would the fledgling Confederacy turn that down?

[PhoenixAsh]

Alabama secession speech:

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Alabama_secession_Speech.htm

I feel impelled, Mr. President, to vote for this Ordinance by an overruling necessity. Years ago I was convinced that the Southern States (http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1861/november/southern-states-map.htm) would be compelled either to separate from the North, by dissolving the Federal Government, or they would be compelled to abolish the institution of African Slavery (http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1861/july/slave-auction.htm). This, in my judgment, was the only alternative; and I foresaw that the South would be compelled, at some day, to make her selection. The day is now come, and Alabama must make her selection, either to secede from the Union, and assume the position of a sovereign, independent State, or she must submit to a system of policy on the part of the Federal Government that, in a short time, will compel her to abolish African Slavery.
Mr. President, if pecuniary loss alone were involved in the abolition of slavery, I should hesitate long before I would give the vote I now intend to give. If the destruction of slavery entailed on us poverty alone, I could bear it, for I have seen poverty and felt its sting. But poverty, Mr. President, would be one of the least of the evils that would befall us from the abolition of African slavery. There are now in the slaveholding States over four millions of slaves; dissolve the relation of master and slave, and what, I ask, would become of that race? To remove them from amongst us is impossible. History gives us no account of the exodus of such a number of persons. We neither have a place to which to remove them, nor the means of such removal. They therefore must remain with us; and if the relation of master and slave be dissolved, and our slaves turned loose amongst us without restraint, they would either be destroyed by our own hands-- the hands to which they look, and look with confidence, for protection-- or we ourselves would become demoralized and degraded. The former result would take place, and we ourselves would become the executioners of our own slaves. To this extent would the policy of our Northern enemies drive us; and thus would we not only be reduced to poverty, but what is still worse, we should be driven to crime, to the commission of sin; and we must, therefore, this day elect between the Government formed by our fathers (the whole spirit of which has been perverted), and POVERTY AND CRIME! This being the alternative, I cannot hesitate for a moment what my duty is. I must separate from the Government of my fathers, the one under which I have lived, and under which I wished to die. But I must do my duty to my country and my fellow beings; and humanity, in my judgment, demands that Alabama should separate herself from the Government of the United States.
If I am wrong in this responsible act, I hope my God may forgive me; for I am not actuated, as I think, from any motive save that of justice and philanthropy!

[PhoenixAsh]

And since we now have seven states...we can deduces more clearly that Louisiana whose population consisted of 47% slaves!!!! Was also following the exact same logic.

As for the rest.

So no...the MAIN reason for seccession was not taxes...but slavery

[ZrianKobani]

Joseph Smith once said, "One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may."

I can't ignore all this evidence and in good faith keep my religion so I admit defeat. I probably had no way of winning in the first place but the rebel flag has sentimental value to me and I think it's worth fighting for. I'll always fly the flag and it will always have it's own special meaning to me but no longer will I have any illusions about the purpose of the Confederacy.

[Havet]

Where's the option: 'I like the colours of the flag, i tolerate it, but i do not support its ideals, or the ideals the people carrying the flag usually have'?

[tachosomoza]

Joseph Smith once said, "One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may."

I can't ignore all this evidence and in good faith keep my religion so I admit defeat. I probably had no way of winning in the first place but the rebel flag has sentimental value to me and I think it's worth fighting for. I'll always fly the flag and it will always have it's own special meaning to me but no longer will I have any illusions about the purpose of the Confederacy.

Did you honestly think you were going to come to a leftist forum and find people who'd agree with you, bro?

[ZrianKobani]

Did you honestly think you were going to come to a leftist forum and find people who'd agree with you, bro?
Never thought it'd blow up like it did. I'm honest to a fault and from what I've read on restriction, that's something to avoid.

[Jose Gracchus]

I don't think the associated producers will need to discipline eccentric workers who choose to cling personally to their symbol of racism. I can't imagine any communist society where there would be actual collective, working-class revolutionary institutions that would ever sponsor the public display of the CSA flag in a positive light, so I think this, like most "WOULD YOU BAN THIS AS IF YOU WERE THE BOURGEOIS STATE RIGHT NOW?"-type lame-ass prompts, is mostly irrelevant.

I do not support politically rallying to the bourgeois state to repress it on our behalf, either.

[Desperado]

Nationalism: loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups

What a shit definition. Did Steve Biko believe this? Did Ghandi believe this? Most of the "nationalists" I personally know believe nothing of the sort.

And "pride" must always be taken with caution. It can mean either simply positive self inflection or a belief in being better, higher, such as that you describe in your post.

[Olentzero]

We Yankees can beat you Red Sox any day, wait, wrong Yankee.You checked the latest NL East standings? I got three recent days in June says you're wrong. (Love that dirty water....)

EDIT: Hell, looks like we're 8 for 9 this season against the Pinstriped Bastards. Care to retract that statement? :tt2:


We Rangers can beat you both \o/3 for 3 against the Red Sox I'll give you, but only 2 for 6 against the Yankees so far this season? Not exactly a winning streak there. Plus your percentage is the weakest of the three division leaders. Gonna need to see some better performance before I'm convinced.

Now to the serious part. The Confederate flag was first raised over a country, the constitution (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp) of which contained a very clear, explicit statement:
The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected [by] Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.The various incarnations and forms of the Confederate flag flew over the territory and war machine of a country expressly dedicated to protecting and expanding the institution of slavery. It's not like the Basque flag, or the Cornish or Welsh or Breton or Kurdish flags, which were designed to promote a cultural identity that its proponents felt to be threatened either by assimilation or oppression. It is a flag that was used to promote a system of race-based economic exploitation and oppression. The excuse about preserving Southern heritage is nothing more than that - an excuse, devised long after the war ended as a cover for continued racism. The Confederate flag, whatever form it may take, has no place in today's society.

[ZrianKobani]

3 for 3 against the Red Sox I'll give you, but only 2 for 6 against the Yankees so far this season? Not exactly a winning streak there. Plus your percentage is the weakest of the three division leaders. Gonna need to see some better performance before I'm convinced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTU8KBH4zDI

Only a matter of time ;)

[RGacky3]

Freedom for who? To do what?

For everyone, to speak whats on their mind.


Nationalism: loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups

Sure, but nationalism is far far bigger than the confederate flag.

[Le Socialiste]

I'm a country boy at heart so I love it in the sense that I honor the idea of secession and the idea that the Confederates were trying to restore the ideals of the American Revolution. That said, I understand why some people jump on it's head and I hate that it's become so associated with the Klan.


No wonder you're restricted.

[Forward Union]

Well when you consider how the confederacy treated its prisoners;

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Andersonvillesurvivor.jpg

People seem to see the confederacy in some kind of noble light because it was a rebellion against the United States, but this was long before the United States was a significant imperial power. The Confederacy was far worse, a cohort of slave owning businessmen that didn't want to have their little tyranny's hassled by a contextually progressive federal government. All this said, the flag itself is a cult icon in various biker and rock subcultures, and (especially outside of america) is only losely associate with the confederacy, most people probably think the logo originated from Dallas. I'm not sure to what extent Americans who use the flag are really Confederate Nationalists, or to what extent that term has any meaning. Southerners will have to fill us in.

But no, I don't think it should be banned.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm going to be a bit contentious here and say that I do, to a certain extent, sympathising with the use of the flag as a symbol of Southern regional and cultural identity. However, I think that it goes without saying that the flag in question is a inarguably godawful choice for that purpose, given not only its historically unsavoury associations, to put it lightly- and unlike, say, the Union flag, those aren't accumulated associations, but innate ones- but in that it symbolically excludes non-white (and arguably, non-Anglo) residents of the region from membership in that identity. I think that there would be some value in designing and popularising a new regional flag with an inclusive character, perhaps as part of broader program to publicly reclaim a Southern regional identity from the narrow, reactionary politics with which it is associated outside of the region. (It could even be argued that the saltire might be retained as a symbol of the Anglo-Celtic cultural influence on the region, if balanced with some symbolism asserting the equally significant African-American influence- perhaps a saltire using elements of the pan-African colours?- although that's obviously a choice that would have to be left to the inhabitants of the region. I'm probably just a little biased towards saltires, for obvious reasons. ;))

Do any Southern posters have any reactions to that suggestion?


On behalf of vexillology enthusiasts everywhere, let me just say ":crying:".But the problem is, cultural identity for who - the vast majority of black people in American are a couple generations removed from the south and the vast majority would never identify with that flag at all. Since post-reconstruction times, the flag has been reworked as a sysmbol of "poor white" southern heritage which has the effect of dividing the southern working class.

In a historical context the flag was originally the flag of elite slave-owners, then it was they symbol of "the lost cause" which was a white supremacy movement coinciding with the establishment of jim-crow (as north and south elites came to common ground and the north ditched attempts at reconstruction there was a cultural movement of romanticizing the Civil War in the South as a sort of just, but lost battle). Then it was the symbol of the segregationists and has again re-emerged among various US reactionaries that call for "states rights" and veil some of the same racist sentiments in libertarian type lingo. I grew up in California which was not part of the confederacy (actually became a state and part of the North) but the racists and the neo-nazis all use the confederate flag. Non-racists also used it and claimed it was about "states rights" not the confederacy - but these were also the same people who would say "jew you down" and make racist jokes quickly followed by, "but I'm not a racist".

So all that and the fact that most black Americans and civil rights groups oppose the flag means that I think we need to see the flag also as a symbol of racism that is used by the ruling class to try and bing white americans in the south (and north actually) to white supremacist ideas as well as a veiled threat against black people to watch out because look at the possibility that exists just under the surface of US society.

[Coach Trotsky]

Didn't the Union North under the Scars and Stripes also have slavery?
Let's not sanitize the North and its flag, like bourgeois liberals do.

Now, you really gotta ask, why would working people in the USA TODAY cling to and wave either the Scars and Stripes or the Confederate flags, when neither of these flags ever historically represented THEIR interests, but rather instead represented their masters' interests?

It seems to me that these working people need flag(s) that actually represents them and their struggles and best interests/aspirations instead. To hell with the flags of our capitalist and reactionary enemies!

[Olentzero]

Didn't the Union North under the Scars and Stripes also have slavery?Not to the same extent or for the same amount of time as the South. Take a look at this animated timeline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Slave_Free_1789-1861.gif) of the development of slave and free territory. Most of the original Northern colonies abolished slavery immediately after the American Revolution (with the notable exception of my birth state, Vermont, which was six years ahead of the curve :D); New Jersey was the last of the original colonies to abolish slavery in 1804, almost 60 years before the Civil War broke out. After that, the incoming territories north of the Mason-Dixon line came in to the Union as free states; if there had been slavery in those territories it was abolished as a condition of joining the Union and it still was probably nowhere near the extent of the Southern states. For all the sins committed and blood spilled under the flag of the United States, it does not represent the damnable bondage of Negro slavery the way the Confederate flag does.

[Coach Trotsky]

Not to the same extent or for the same amount of time as the South. Take a look at this animated timeline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Slave_Free_1789-1861.gif) of the development of slave and free territory. Most of the original Northern colonies abolished slavery immediately after the American Revolution (with the notable exception of my birth state, Vermont, which was six years ahead of the curve :D); New Jersey was the last of the original colonies to abolish slavery in 1804, almost 60 years before the Civil War broke out. After that, the incoming territories north of the Mason-Dixon line came in to the Union as free states; if there had been slavery in those territories it was abolished as a condition of joining the Union and it still was probably nowhere near the extent of the Southern states. For all the sins committed and blood spilled under the flag of the United States, it does not represent the damnable bondage of Negro slavery the way the Confederate flag does.
And my point is that BOTH should be condemned, rather than "well, the North wasn't as bad as the South". There are variations of these argument in the context of struggles of the workers and oppressed going on since.
I'll bet you can think of many more such positions, like the classic argument "my people are/were MORE oppressed than your people" ...as if the point wasn't the liberation of ALL, but rather about keeping score and getting revenge inside the context of the capitalist system. Who benefits from these games? Oh, yeah, liberal/reformist sellout misleader chumps who couldn't actually give a rat's ass about liberation of their more or less oppressed constituencies. Seems to me that ALL the workers and oppressed lose when the capitalists and their allies win.

[Olentzero]

I'll bet you can think of many more such positions, like the classic argument "my people are/were MORE oppressed than your people" ...as if the point wasn't the liberation of ALL, but rather about keeping score and getting revenge inside the context of the capitalist system.Go ahead and make that bet. My beer money's a little low.

[Coach Trotsky]

Go ahead and make that bet. My beer money's a little low.

But both my beer and food money is low. There! Top that. :laugh:

[Olentzero]

Shouldn't be making those kind of bets, then.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well yeah, I don't want to encourage people to wave the US flag or the confederate flag, but regardless, the American Flag is sold to the US population in either a populist or jingoistic way (and to kind of tie these things together in popular consciousness too) and so liberals might wave it and say, "peace is patriotic" which is wrong, but it's not the same as the Confederate Flag which is reactionary even in the context of bourgeois US politics. It's more like people waving monarchist symbols in Europe in my opinion.

[Thirsty Crow]

Or explain to us how 'cultural autonomy' is really a revolutionary thing and not a false community that divides people. Either way. Just don't post to say 'I'm not saying anything' because it's oxymoronic.It's weird that this kind of an argument borders on a kind of an argument used by conservative and nationalist opposition to "multiculturalism" and immigration - that different cultures (languages, dress, customs such as specific gestures in specific situations, cuisine, art) inherently clash with one another.

I can't say I find any merit to it since it is not the culture that divides people, but class rule with its social and ideological consequences (ideological in the sense of consciousness formation).
I can't see why would, in a world of emancipated producers, two different sets of cultures necessarily produce division since there is no material basis for such an occurence.

[Chris]

It's a good flag, aesthetically. Don't misunderstand, I oppose the chattel slavery and racism it has come to represent, but it is a pretty flag.

[Nofuture]

You can't remove the spectacle by removing its garments..the Confederate flag and the Swastika are living symbols even to this day and to take them from public view (and even this would be impossible) would do very little else but empower them.

[TheCommunist]

Yes, it is 'just a flag' but it symbolises one of the worst chapters of human history, and anyone who shows a confederate flag is either stupid, or racist - so they're stupid either way ;)

[IvanDrago]

Yes the Confederate flag is the ideal of bigotry. These men who supported this regime were slave owners. They were another form of elitist. Anyone who supports this type of mentality has an underlying facist agenda.