Posted on 06/14/2006 5:58:12 PM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom
Confederate flags flown aboard the international space station and seemingly signed by a NASA astronaut showed up last week on the online auction site eBay.
The original eBay listing indicated that the 4-by-6-inch flags were brought aboard the space station by Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov in 2004, and an accompanying photo showed a sample flag that seemed to bear Sharipovs signature as well as that of Leroy Chiao, his NASA colleague on the station. Yet another photo showed several of the rebel flags floating in a space station module.
The item was pulled from the auction on Monday by the seller, Alex Panchenko of USSR-Russian Air-Space Collectibles Inc. in Los Angeles and on Tuesday, Panchenko told MSNBC.com that he removed the items from sale because he had concluded the flag and the authentication documents were forgeries.
However, Robert Pearlman, editor and founder of CollectSpace, said he believes the flags are authentic.
The picture taken of the flags aboard the station says a lot, he said. It would be difficult to fake, given the style and I couldn't see the motivation to do so. The onboard-the-ISS stamp, added Pearlman, is not known to have been counterfeited anywhere."
The disappearance of the flags followed a round of criticism over the weekend from former space scientist Keith Cowing, publisher of NASA Watch, an independent Web log. He cited the Confederate flags as an example of bad judgment on the ISS.
You'd think that someone on the U.S. side of the ISS program would have expressed some concern about flying a symbol on the ISS that many Americans associate with slavery, Cowing wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
No. Do you? The figures I stated were the highest-recorded memberships, taken at the peak of the Klan's political power, and will likely never be exceeded. The modern Klan, so far as it still exists, has been politically irrelevant for decades, at least in the South.
Do you even have a date for those figures, never mind recent ones? Are we talking 1967 membership? 1927 membership? What? Websites like Klanwatch show that what's left of the Klan seems to be primarily in the south.
Sorry. I assumed you knew that the peak years of the Ku Klux Klan were from 1915 to 1930, the peak years being the focus of Jackson's work. "What's left of the Klan" might very well be in the South, the operative phrase being "what's left," which is practically nothing.
I'm sure you're aware that Klanwatch is part of the SLPC. It's founder is notorious leftist Morris Dees. You might want to do a little checking on him (from sources other than his fellow leftist admirers) before relying on his numbers.
Now that's a nice mental picture.
Thanks for the clarification. It's true that the Klan was a power in the North for a while, but it's rise and fall were happened is a short period of time. The stronghold of the Klan has always been in the southern states.
I'm sure you're aware that Klanwatch is part of the SLPC. It's founder is notorious leftist Morris Dees. You might want to do a little checking on him (from sources other than his fellow leftist admirers) before relying on his numbers.
I'm well aware that all y'all can't stand Morris Dees, but until someone can come up with some conflicting data I see no reason not to accept his figures.
I've read that quote from Bennett and have a couple of problems with it. The first one being that Lincoln is by far the most documented president of his age. His speeches and letters are available on-line here and here and here . Lincoln's stories and jokes have been documented for decades during times when racial slurs were not looked down upon. And in all those sources, the only place I've ever seen Bennett's charge is in Bennett's book itself. I've never seen any examples of these jokes and stories. How would you explain that?
Key to Bennett's thesis is the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation which, Bennett argues, Lincoln was forced into issuing by the powerful abolitionist wing of his own party. Bennett asserts that Lincoln carefully worded the document to apply only to the rebel Southern states, which were not under Union control at the time, thus resulting in an Emancipation Proclamation that did not in itself free a single slave.
Bennett's charge is completely false. By issuing an order freeing the slaves in those states in rebellio, Lincoln basically overturned the Fugitive Slave laws with mandated run away slaves be returned. Following the proclamation any slave running away to Union lines was free to stay without frear of being returned to bondage. The fact that it applied to the rebellious states only is undeniable. Slavery was legal, after all, and it took the 13th Amendment to end it. An amendment which Lincoln fought hard for. Though Bennett conveniently overlooks that part.
At one point, Bennett quotes William Henry Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, who referred to the proclamation as a hollow, meaningless document showing no more than, "our sympathy with the slaves by emancipating the slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."
Perhaps he should have quoted Lincoln?
The stars and bars are a symbol of states rights - the sort of thing that would prevent a gay marriage from Massachusetts being forced down the throats of Mississippians.
Or any limitations on the institution of slavery. As one confederate senator, Robert Hunter said in 1865, "What did we go to war for, if not to protect our [slave] property?"
Good one.
You forgot Gore, Ben Nelson, Roy Barnes, Huey Long, Edwin Edwards, Blanco......
I didn't say Yankees had a monopoly on worthless trash, but they sure seem to do a lot better job of keeping them in DC and inflicting the rest of the nation with their idiocy.
To all who may be interested. Here is a great collection of articles the Hartford Courant did several years back with regards to slavery and the north.
Complicity - How Connecticut Chained itself to Slavery
http://www.courant.com/news/local/northeast/hc-slavery,0,3581810.special?coll=hc-headlines-nationworld
Uh, I'm on your side regarding this whole Southern heritage thing, I think you mixed me up with someone else
Mobile, Alabama, a city that is not de-facto segregated. More than half of the black population lives in integrated areas.
More than one third of the families in the south owned slaves. A large percentage of the remaining families no doubt derived some economic benefit from slave owners. Odds are pretty good that many confederates, certainly most officers were slave owners or came from slave owning families.
Pvt. Sam Watkins never fought for no planters right to own slaves.
he may have been motivated, in part, by a desire to see blacks remain in the state they were in and not as free men and women.
So you admit the Lincoln regime was a DICTATORSHIP, wherein the Dictator-In-Chief overthrew the Constitution. Thanks for making my case for me.
You might be less aware that the group of folks you're referring to as "y'all" also includes David Horowitz. I'm not aware that Mr. Horowitz has ever been mistaken for a Southerner:
An Open Letter to Morris Dees from David Horowitz
Also, there's a very interesting FR thread on Mr. Dees from a few years ago, discussing an article by Ken Silverstein for Harper's Magazine:
From the article: "The Ku Klux Klan, the SPLC's most lucrative nemesis, has shrunk from 4 million members in the 1920s to an estimated 2,000 today, as many as 10 percent of whom are thought to be FBI informants. But news of a declining Klan does not make for inclining donations to Morris Dees and Co..."
If Mr. Silverstein's figure of 2,000 is correct, and if, for the sake of argument, they all live in the South (a dubious proposition), then politically speaking you still have a statistical irrelevancy. And if, after reading these two pieces, you're still inclined to give Mr. Dees the benefit of the doubt on anything, then we'll just have to agree to disagree.
And a BLACK Mississippi congressman fought with them, and stated that he STILL would be by their side to that day if the war still waged.
By ANY standard, especially that which you judge Confederates, the Lincoln REGIME (advocating PERMANENT slavery) was racist. By ANY standard, especially that which you judge Confederates, the Lincoln was a RACIST. His 1st stump speech to his last was a collection of liberal policies: BIG-government, political graft and corruption, higher taxes, and deportation/colonization for blacks.
I've never seen any examples of these jokes and stories. How would you explain that?
Either you're willfully blind, simply obtuse, ignorant, or perhaps there remains literature that you have refused to read. What, Mr. Bennett is a liar?
The fact that it applied to the rebellious states only is undeniable. Slavery was legal, after all, and it took the 13th Amendment to end it. An amendment which Lincoln fought hard for.
No. Lincoln fought hard for the 2nd proposed 13th (Corwin) which would have made slavery PERMANENT. Even without the the seceded states, the Union STILL could not drum up support to end slavery. Only when it was politically expedient he issued his illegal Proclamation 1) to prevent European nations siding with the Confederacy, 2) to foster a rebellion by blacks in the South against the defenseless old men, women and children remaining there, 3) to entice blacks into fighting for the Union (at reduced wages, no commissions, only under white leadership), and 4) to fool idiots and the gullible into believing that he considered blacks equal.
Giving credit where credit is due, the blacks of the South refused to rise up and slaughter the old men, women and children. Instead, they remained to help defend their homes from the yankee horde that invaded. Kudos to them.
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