In which Recursion rants about the "confederate flag"

[Recursion]

Another thread set me off on this, and I didn't want to threadjack.

I grew up in Mississippi, and I have done civil war re-enactments. It's a time period that fascinates me. I had ancestors fighting on both sides (ironically, the union side of the family were slave owners and the Confederate side were not...) So, I have basically nothing but contempt for the "heritage not hate" argument about the so-called "confederate flag".

Let me tell you why. This is not in any sense "the confederate flag":



As far as anyone can tell, this design is unattested until the 1920s.

It bears some superficial resemblance to the Battle Colors of the Army of Northern Virginia



As well as to the Confederate Naval Jack



But it's the colors of one in the hoist shape of the other. Nothing makes me doubt the sincerity of the "we honor the history" argument like not bothering to learn correct flag discipline. Flags were extremely important to the people in the civil war, and sadly you're actually dishonoring the common soldiers who fought by incorrectly displaying an ahistorical flag. The Naval Jack is improper to fly except aboard a vessel underweigh, and the Army of Northern Virginia Battle Colors are improper to fly except at the head of Lee's army (in particular, neither would have been flown at any point over North Carolina, where the thread that set me off was reported from, nor over Mississippi, which still keeps the battle colors as part of her state flag).

Carry on with your business, I just have to issue this rant from time to time when something sets me off.

Edit: Oh, and incidentally, this is the actual "Confederate Flag":

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. Wiki has pretty good overview of the flags of the confederacy

It appears that there were many versions of the stars and bars. Some flags had the design incorporated into a larger flag design.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America

[geek tragedy]

2. Indeed. No mere coincidence that its revival accompanied

the backlash to the civil rights movement.

But, it is fitting that the battle flag of white supremacism be one adopted in ignorance.

[andthesheepgoesbleet]

3. any flag with the stars and bars on it qualifies as the Confederate Flag

to most people even though it is not historically correct.

Perhaps if the Racists and GOP had not hijacked the Stars and Bars and its connection to racism your beloved Historically Correct Confederate Flag would not be misnamed nor misused.

The Stars and Bars, Nazi, and Gadsden flags all represent hate and hate groups now and that is a fact. The original meanings of all the flags have now changed.

I do know that when even I see any of the above mentioned flags I think that only racists defend its use out side of reinactmetns, movies and plays.

Sure it may be biased and judgmental but oh well, but the flag’s all evoke mainly a negative response from those that see them in use.

[Orsino]

18. Yes. What a history book calls it has nothing to do...

...with the most important and offensive messages the design conveys.

The official name doesn't really enter into the relevant discussion.

[NutmegYankee]

4. I believe there is one proper place to fly the Confederate flag (official one)

Over the Cemeteries of Confederate dead as a sign of respect for their sacrifice to their cause, even if I myself never agree with their cause. Otherwise, I can see the battle flag used in reenactments, but no where else.

Full disclosure - my family fought for the Union in Pennsylvania regiments.

[Aristus]

6. They died fighting for an unworthy cause.

Screw the respect. Fly the American flag over their carcasses, or none at all. There's no reason for flying the flag outside of historical re-enactments, other than racism, hatred, bigotry, or the desire to intimidate.

I say this as a Southerner; every ancestor of mine who fought in the Civil War fought for the Confederacy. I suppose I'm as well-suited as any to bleat about the "heritage" of the flag. But I don't. (I don't live in the South anymore, either.) I don't have to honor what they fought for. And neither should anyone else.

[NutmegYankee]

7. I used to think that way.

I thought of southern soldiers as nothing but traitors, to be scorned, and their demise mocked. But as I got older and walked battlefields like Antietam, I came to realization that they were just citizens fighting for their homes, men whose deaths were mourned by wives and children just like all others. Deaths in a tragic civil conflict that should be remembered to ensure that we never again go into a wholesale slaughter of human lives. And the start of that is remembering that step one of any war is dehumanizing your opponents. I will do it no longer.

[Aristus]

8. I'm not dehumanizing them.

Which is not to say they weren't despicable human beings.

Fighting for home and hearth is nonsense. Nobody wanted to take their home and hearth away. No one was threatening their precious "heritage". They were fighting for slavery. And the slave-owners who stood to gain the most from the blood sacrifice of backwoods illiterates used every trick in the book to convince the troops that they were fighting for anything other than slavery. "States Rights", anybody?

And it's worth pointing out, I think, that the poor non-slave-owners wanted to preserve slavery just as much as the rich planters. As long as slavery existed, the impoverished dirt farmers who did the bulk of the fighting would not be on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder.

[NutmegYankee]

9. I don't expect you to agree with me.

I wouldn't have just 5 years ago.

[Aristus]

10. I don't anticipate that I'll come around to your way of thinking any time soon.

I grew up in the South. I've seen the damage created by a legacy of racism and hatred spawned by the "lost cause". I've seen people twisted into monstrous shapes by an emotional adherence to Jim Crow. I've seen otherwise sweet and loving people behave like psychotics out of a sense of broached entitlement because they were white and felt they had been denied something.

If the South had picked up and gone on after the war, stating: "Okay, we lost that one; no more slavery. Let's live and let live" we wouldn't be having this discussion. A discussion, by the way, sparked by the continued insistence on flying a flag, however erroneously, that symbolizes hatred, bigotry,and a mis-applied sense of grievance.

[NutmegYankee]

11. I grew up in the South too.

And that influenced my previous viewpoint dramatically. I saw what you saw, and hate it just like you. I just stopped blaming the actions of modern day people on soldiers who died 150 years ago.

As for flag, I was talking about the official CSA flag, not the battle flag used by racists throughout the south.

[Aristus]

12. I don't think we should be flying that flag over cemeteries.

The flag of an enemy of the United States, that seized Federal property and fired on Federal troops. Besides, if it would piss off the ghosts of the Confederates to be buried under the American flag, I'm fine with that.

[NutmegYankee]

13. It's like I'm talking to a younger version of myself. nt

[Aristus]

14. I'm 44. And I've been around the block a few times.

I'm not saying what I'm saying out of charming juvenile naivete.

[NutmegYankee]

15. I wasn't implying naivete, sorry you took it that way.

I just used to say the same things. I'm a big history buff and spent a lot of time walking battle fields and spent some time reflecting on the horror that enveloped those places. I changed the way I look at the war.

[Aristus]

16. Thank you.

If it helps, I appreciate your compassion for people who very likely die in a horrible way, far from home and family. I know that not every Confederate soldier was doing what he was doing voluntarily. The CSA began conscription a full year before the USA.

But in wartime, everyone faces a moral choice. Fight for a cause unworthy of your bravery, switch sides, or stay home. The CSA's deliberately weak Executive Branch very likely did not have the power to enforce conscription in any meaningful way, and if a Confederate soldier deserted in order to return home to his family, there was likely very little the wealthy power-elite could do about it.

[StrayKat]

5. I didn't know that.

Thanks for pointing it out.

[friendlyFRIEND]

17. On ones own private property

It's no damn business what flag someone flies. Stars and bars or unicorns and fairies... who cares?

But to the point... here's what the real stars n bars woulda looked like in 1864:

[img][/img]