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 Sharipov’s 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 ...
love those colors ....isn't it grand ?
Good find. My guess is that usmcobra will not respond to this, although he is probably feverishly searching in vain for some evidence as we speak.
please note that it is a U.S. Navy website :^)
time tends to heal , don't it ?
usmcobra, I stand corrected and offer my apologies.
Here we go with the futile attempt to equate political affiliations of the 1860's to those of today....and I refuse to defend those that allow the Klan to use The Confederate flag as their symbol of power in the south.
The Klan marched under the American flag for over 100 years... which you conveniently fail to mention.
If you are a "true son of the south" who recently changed his mind, you might want to look in to who brainwashed you.
We had no reason to industrialize before the war. Our cities were primarily ports or other transportation/distribution centers, they ran merchant economies just fine. In rural areas, anyone could own land, and many who were not planters did fine as subsistence farmers. Would have made no sense to promote policies that would have disrupted a social order that seemed to be working.
I wonder why no one else has responded to your very informitive post?
Furthermore, as a Son of the South, I understand that We in The South Lost the War. In addition, I understand that the side that loses a War should forgo the symbols of their defeated regime and have some allegiance to the victor.
Somehow, I do not think your Social Order
worked well for those who were enslaved.
Indeed. The very foundation of the southern economy was agriculture as it is in many parts of the midwest today. Change was not necessary.
Why must you always defend democrats?
It was the democrats that brainwashed me in the first place to believe that their southern leaders were right.
Need I point out that the Klan was a creation of the democrats originally used to prevent Republicans from voting in the south?
Have I ever defended slavery, no I have not. In fact, I've gone out of my way to ensure slavery is not the issue at all. The issue is, did the Union commit unsavory acts in achieving it's victory. Was Ben Butler out of line in his famous "women of New Orleans are whores" declaration. What kind of financial management, or lack thereof, led Mobile to a state of default in the 1870's, a default precipitated by Reconstruction officials.
I just know that if we had passively accepted the result of the war, chances are, we wouldn't have Mardi Gras today, it would have died out with so many other things that died out with the passing of the antebellum South. Luckily, no one had any interest in letting that happen, least of all pissed off ex-officers, so time marched on, we preserved carnival, and though we were set back 50 years by the death of the Cotton Kingdom, the port did eventually recover.
Yes... allegiance to the victor, just like:
A son of the south? Really?
Here we go again... Equating political affiliations of today with that of the 1860's. It doesn't work. Most people here are too smart for that.
The following quote is from the book [Born Fighting, How the Scots-Irish Shaped America]. All you sons of the South should pick up a copy of it. By reading this book I learned allot about my Southern ancestors and their will to fight and die in battling oppression and tyranny.
THE NAZIFICATION OF THE CONFEDERACY
“The greatist disservice has been the attempt by revisionist politicians and academics to defame the entire Confederate Army in a move that can only be termed the Nazification of the Confederacy. Often cloaked in the argument over the public display of the Confederate battle flag, the syllogism goes something like this: Slavery was evil. The soldiers of the Confederacy fought for a system that wished to preserve it. Therefore they were evil as well, and any attempt to honor their service is a veiled effort to glorify the cause of slavery. This dishonors hundreds of thousands of men who can defend themselves only through the voices of their descendants.”
"In the three months that followed the election of Abraham Lincoln, seven states seceded from the Union: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. Representatives from these seven states quickly established a new political organization, the Confederate States of America."
So Fort Sumner was no longer located in the USA and they were requested to leave, but refused. Sounds like the Federal Government was looking to start a fight to me. States did have the right to secede from the Union.
I'm sure you laughed when you posted that! Read my tagline.
Not all Southerners were Scots-Irish though. At the time of the war, almost all of my ancestors were of French/Anglo descent, heavy on the French mind you. It is true, almost all of the inland areas were Scots-Irish, but on the coast, Anglo-Saxons, French, Irish and other ethnicities predominated.
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