This beautiful man took bold action.
If you want to complain about the harm done to those poor racist, Confederacy-worshipping seccessionists, I don’t care to hear it. I want to see a thousand heroes like that man. He ran like he was the cavalry, now we just needed a few infantry throwing punches and an artillery flinging milkshakes, and those scumbags would have been routed.
Ah blast it, I thought he was going to get clear with the flag. Very good move though.
That protestor’s comment they chose to broadcast, the one where the confederate-flag-hat wearer “honors” his ancestors because they “fought for what they believed in”. How do people even manage to convince themselves of that crap?
Does that person really expect us to believe that killing people is so noble that even if you killed people in the name of slavery we have to honor you 150 years later? One of my grandfathers flew planes in WW2. As far as I know, he didn’t kill anyone (he flew cargo and transport, which were actually most of the flights made in WW2). But if he had, the killing wouldn’t be anything to be proud of. Standing up to tyranny is necessary, but it is the very necessity of it that makes it something other than heroic. What necessity does do is absolve you of the guilt of killing others.
But the South wasn’t standing up to tyranny. The South was enabling, perpetuating, celebrating tyranny. You don’t get your absolution from killing when you choose to fight for tyranny. You’re not noble because you marched a long way or took potshots at someone’s head when it stuck up above a lump of earth. “Fighting for what you believe in” isn’t something that’s good unless what you believe in is also good. When a three year old who honestly believes in the right to another cookie throws a tantrum, we don’t “honor” the child for standing up for what that child believes.
Every single time someone spouts this bullshit, the idea needs to be slapped down.
Every. Single. Time.
Yeah, the white dude honors his ancestors because they were traitors. He is an admitted seccessionist, so he is also a traitor to the United States of America. A country that allowed the owning of human beings for much too long.
Hey, Dixie hat guy: your ancestors fought for the right to buy and sell black people like livestock.
Fuck your ancestors and fuck you.
This tearing down of the Slavers’ flag is a perfect metaphor for what needs to be done to America’s festering, hate-fuelled, theocratic right wing.*
*Normally I’d have said “far right” but the inclusion of outright loons like Pence and DeVos in positions of high power, the normalisation of things like white supremacy and the gentle treatment of fucking slavery apologists on the morning news has rendered such a distinction moot. The Overton Window is so far to the right that people like Ben Shapiro can claim to be liberals.**
**Classical Liberals™️, which means their racism and misogyny and gender creationism is scientific and supported by Reason™️
Because they have convinced themselves that their ancestors were fighting for “state’s rights” of which slavery was just a small part and on its way out anyway, and that left alone, the price paid for letting slavery run its course “naturally” would have been far less than price paid in the Civil War.
Delusional thought is surprisingly easy after you’ve been doing it long enough.
Take that show on the road…
https://twitter.com/CInsistence/status/1134230433237852161
@641local
Love that
@5
then they invented jim crow, share cropping and contract chain gangs. and still have very poor labor laws right to work (for a pittance) laws.
uncle frogy
It’s almost funny how these people love their “Marine Todd” stories, constantly threaten with violence anyone who speaks up against oppression, and actually commit acts of violence towards minorities; yet are the first to complain about vandalism, civility, and and the importance of non-violent actions. All while they are actively promoting the violence of genocide.
I’m all for stealing and defacing symbols of the confederacy, nazism, the kkk, etc.
One can’t support those ideas of genocide and oppression, and honestly claim to be concerned about civility and morality.
Congratulations to both the gentleman featured in the OP, and also the one shown in @6 !
In the case of the OP, a few milkshakes were also called for.
The confederate flag is obviously so tainted and rooted in bigotry and oppression that it is not worth trying to recover in any capacity. But that’s the easy mode for decision-making on the acceptability of symbols. I wonder whether the same might not be said of the Stars and Stripes – a flag under which the genocide of the native Americans, the Vietnam War and all the capitalist excess of the 20th Century was conducted. Or the Union Flag of the United Kingdom, which flew over just as much imperialist oppression. Or the French Tricolor, for the same.
At what point do we say a flag stands for such problematic ideas that it should be shunned? Can any amount of positive connotation tip the scales the other way? And if a flag is tainted by the history of the nation it represents, wouldn’t the new flag that replaces it immediately become just as tainted? Or should we put the decision in the hands of the victims and those who feel oppressed today? Is it because the Confederate flag is used as a symbol by bigots and racists now that it is so offensive? Do Native Americans or the Vietnamese find the Stars and Stripes less offensive? I have to say the extent of flag-waving jingoism in the American mainstream that much of the world associates with the Stars and Stripes doesn’t seem a million miles away from what these Confederate flag-wavers are doing. Is it that the professed ideals behind the Stars and Stripes – unity, liberty, democracy – are so much nicer which gives it a pass? But what of the history there? Hawaii, the fiftieth of those stars, was taken over in a coup, and there are other territories such as Puerto Rico and American Samoa that have been explicitly denied membership of the club for racist reasons.
My solution would be to ditch the flags altogether.
So many puncable faces blathering in the cameras.
It is heartbraking how the police strike down the flagstealer. It is very clear on what side they stand.
#11
One thought on keeping flags: they represent the country, the good, bad, and ugly. There is good in this country as well as evil and the flag flies for both. There is good in the Constitution even with the fact that it encoded slavery. This country is a work in progress and the flag flies for what we were, what we are, the struggle to get to this point, and the hope for what could be. The sins inherent in the founding of the country should never be forgotten and still have a huge effect to this day but abandoning the symbol of the country will not change that or provide for a better future. As I have told my children, this country does not require one to say the pledge of allegiance, to sing the national anthem, or to fly the flag. It is their choice how they interact with these public symbols. (I am quite proud to say that when they choose to fly a flag it is the Rainbow flag.) I also tell told them there may be costs to their actions (see Kaepernick). On the optimistic side, there is a lot of good work to be done here : ) On my dark days, I am with you and hate to see the flag.
In contrast the battle flag of northern VA, was created for the Civil War. A war fought to maintain a way of life centered around the classification of humans as property in perpetuity. It has represented white supremacy for its entire history. It has never been the flag of a country. At best those who fly it can claim ignorance of what the flag stands for, but that is far from a desirable trait.
As a Brit ,doesn’t it count as treason to fly the confederate flag instead of the Stars and Stripes ?
davidc1@14: No. First amendment. Free speech. Abused to freeze peaches. Treason is also unusual as it’s defined in the constitution (levying war against the US, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort). It seems a bit of a stretch to considering waving that flag as meeting any of those criteria, albeit apparently the only person ever executed for treason (during the war against slavery) tore down a USAian flag.
Think of it this way, the American flag is also Kaepernick’s flag; the Confederate–asshole-traitor-bigot-homicidal-maniac flag is not.
@ 14
In terms of realpolitik, the north was eager to reunite and reconcile with the south after the civil war, so a lot of crap was, and has been since, put up with. It’s way past time to rectify that.
My granddad was in the Army during WW2 but was stationed at a battery in Galveston, so he never got the chance to punch a Nazi. Who knows, maybe I’ll yet have the opportunity to slug one for him.
This sort of obsession over foldable symbols is common in Northern Ireland as well. We had a nice little riot back in 2013 on the subject and we even got some numbers to try an quantify things: http://ipseus.blogspot.com/2013/04/symbolix-identity.html
More violence?! Assault, whether it be with knives or milkshakes or eggs is still assault. Not ADW, but still unnecessary and wrong. We have fallen terribly when folks justify recourse to violence as legitimate protest.
@mountainbob:
Who has fallen, in your formulation?
That guy was later murdered in New Orleans: https://www.foxnews.com/us/charleston-black-lives-matter-leader-shot-killed-in-new-orleans-niece-says