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Via WSFA: Rally held at Alabama Capitol to protest removal of Confederate flags
According to the Sons of the Confederacy, the rally is to send a message that the Confederate flag is about heritage, not hate.
I am really tired of that formulation. What specific heritage? Fighting a war to preserve slavery? A symbol of the Lost Cause? A rally point for the KKK? A political middle finger atop a capitol dome in protest of desegregation?
Photo course: WSFA. More at the link.
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The linked article above says, “Hundreds of people showed up”. The pictures look like maybe a couple hundred. POLITICO has an article today In Lindsey Graham’s hometown, resentment over the Confederate flag. Pretty thin actually, the takeaway line is, “Some resent him for turning on the flag. Most understand it. On race and Confederate heritage, they express the same mix of stubborn defensiveness, empathy and resignation that Graham has.”
This is over. Not with a bang but a whimper.
@DrDaveT: This is hardly a massive response, and I was not trying to imply that it was.
The term “deadender” comes to mind.
Also, there have been several church burnings. https://atlantablackstar.com/2015/06/26/following-the-attack-on-emanuel-ame-two-recent-fires-at-black-churches-strike-at-the-heart-of-black-america/
People have, in a number of places, posed the question: “What heritage? Explain it to me.” I haven’t seen a straightforward, coherent answer to the question yet. “You’re a Yankee; you wouldn’t understand” is a fairly common response. Many of the other answers are considerably less civilized.
The plain fact is, a coherent explanation would require defending the indefensible. And it’s terribly hard to do that.
It saddens me that so many of my fellow Americans take pride in this “heritage.”
There was a Florida Confederate nostalgia rally too (on Friday) :
“This is heritage, this ain’t hate,” says [Organizer William] Pew.
^ And there’s that line again.
Some more photos at the Mail:
@Jeremy R: You know, conservatives always believe their own BS. If they scream “heritage not hate” enough times maybe it’ll help them get past the hate.
@Rafer Janders: I must take stern exception to this line of insult and denigration. I do not know if I have any descendants that fought in the Civil War. I may have, probably on both sides. I do know that the officers of the northern army had high regard and respect for their southern counter parts, and for good reason. They had attended military school together. They had served together in action before the Civil War, and afterward reunited in action out west and the Spanish American War, with Teddy Roosevelt (now people are calling him a racist). How about their post Civil War service ? Does that not count ? I guess now they will start running down Washington. It is so convenient to question someone’s honor and courage after they are gone and not around to defend themselves. If these soldiers were okay by Sherman, they should be fine by anyone.
Today the Confederate flag. Soon the US flag ( it is already happening !)
@Tyrell: Sorry, but the people flying that flag crapped all over it when they let it be used by the KKK, pro-segregationist, and White Power idjits without a peep of complaint.
@grumpy realist: I am going to go a step further: regardless of the reasons for the individuals who fought the flag flew over battles that defend a white supremacist slave state. It was, therefore, pre-crapped.
That one might make a argument for remembering the war dead is fine, but to me is a different issue. (Although I think we overly fetishize war dead, but that is for a different discussion).
@An Interested Party: Indeed–that is an exceedingly silly argument.
@Tyrell:
Dude, chill. No one is threatening the US flag. Absolutely no one. People straining to justify the racist flag want to tie it to the stars and stripes, but that’s dishonest manipulation. Don’t let yourself be manipulated that way.
As for the old south, the fact that Union army officers had regard for southern officers is entirely irrelevant. Patton admired Rommel, that doesn’t mean he admired either Nazi Germany or their flag. That’s just more emotional manipulation from men who cannot face reality.
@Tyrell:Wait…are you seriously suggesting that officers who attended our military academies in the 1830s, 40s, and 50s were still in active service in 1898???
@Gromitt Gunn: General Fitzhugh Lee, Captain Charles Sigsbee, Admiral Dewey, Rear Admiral Thomas Sampson, Coomodore Schley, Major General William Shafter. There were many others: officers and just regular soldiers who volunteered after the cowardly sinking of the Maine. There were also, of course, the Rough Riders; a collection of cowboys, soldiers, and frontiersmen who distinguished themselves beside Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill. These soldiers fought together regardless of their side in the Civil War. These were soldiers, not politicians.
@Tyrell: If the flag had been flown consistently for the past 150 years, or had it been brought back for the 50th anniversary of the civil war to honor heritage, I might believe that.
It was brought back in response to desegregation. It was brought back by racists, to rally their racist supporters.
@Tyrell: Well, I have been told! Learn something new every day.
@Tyrell:
Does that not count ?
US Constitution, Art 3 Sec 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
So no, that doesn’t count. And nobody is disparaging their courage or their chivalrous nature, but don’t mistake chivalry for honor. Betraying your country is NOT honorable.
