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 ...
The Rebel flag was a flag that was integral to people who are a part of this nation. The Mexican flag is the flag of a foreign nation. It has no place here. It is also symbolic of a foreign nation taking over parts of our nation. The people who carry it here are showing allegence to Mexico. The people who carry the Rebel flag do so out of nostalgia. They are not showing their allegence to a foreign nation at all. They still honor the flag of the United States as well. It is not a replacement. The Mexican flag is. Those who carry it make no bones about it.
LOL, yeah, we'd have to get permission to change the name of OUR space station.
you left off the very last paragraph, where they declard that the State of Alabama is opposed to reopening the African Slave Trade.
No, I mean like folks who have time to go postal every time the rebel flag shows up.
By the way it is my contention that The democrats have not changed one bit since the end of the Civil War, they're only flying false colors on race these days, pretending to care just to get votes from minorities, and that the SCV is as much a political organ of the Democrats as The NAACP has become.
You refuse to admit that it is even possible.
Two different arguments here. Nobody is bashing America or saying that they are not loyal Americans. Hell, the south kept Gore and Kerry out of the White House. As far as your line above... we as Americans are not bashing Britain and there is no contraversy over the British flag. Yes, you are right that we no longer have allegiance to Britain, but Britain is not being treated as the Confederacy is being treated. This is an argument of the demonization of the South, which sadly is perpetuated by the left today.
I take it you've never been to a Camp meeting...
I refuse to wear those pointy hats and silk sheets they make you wear.
Still trying that argument?
Because it makes no sense to anyone who's looked at Southern political history. The Republicans are the inheritors of the legacy of what in this state were called the "Big Mules". The "Big Mules" were the inheritors of the legacy left by the Bourbon Democrats, and roughly half of those who became Bourbons had in fact been members of the Whig Party prior to the war. During Reconstruction, the Democrats were the conservatives, this is not to say they are today, far from it, because as I explained before, in this state, Democratic strength is roughly a replica of Reconstruction Republican strength and vice-versa.
The reason the Democratic Party got dumped is because they became liberal, which made sense because in economic terms, the average Southern voter was an economic liberal. It was the advent of culture wars that fundamentally changed what both parties were about, with the Republicans doing what they weren't doing in the 1870s, which was advocating traditional values, and the Democrats doing what Republicans were doing then, which was advocating radical social change and the dismissal of traditional values. The Republicans had the Eisenhower genesis in the South amongst state's rights Democrats, who were primarily business leaders/middle class people in the cities. That's how my family came to the Republican Party.
At the same time, the Democratic Party of the Bourbons was totally dissimilar to the Democratic Party that existed prior to 1850, which was primarily of Jacksonian undertones. Of course, these people would bolt the post-Reconstruction Democratic party rather quickly for 3 decades following Reconstruction, as they became the backbone of various insurgent movements including the Populists. The people who control the Republican Party in our state today are the same people who led the Whigs in pre-war times and who led the Bourbon Reedeemer governments. Once again, the Republican areas of our state today are areas that, allowing for population trends and everything else, were Whig in the 1840s and Democrat in the early 1870s before the restoration.
Thank you for posting this. It has just made my point. You have no understanding whatsoever and clearly have never been to a Camp meeting. I suppose when you don't have the facts behind you, you can just throw crap out there and hope it sticks.
Slaves bought and sold for nearly 90 years under the American flag... and NOT ONE slave freed in the Union Slave states by the Emancipation Proclamation. Your argument is as hollow as it gets. You have been indoctrinated by the left Mr. H. Paul Pressler IV, Esquire.... by the way, would you happen to have any Grey Poupon?
You can't deny that in recent years a certain unsavory element has taken over the SCV.
Or that membership has suffered due to a move towards the white.
With a lovely view of the Southern Cross.
Ok, now that is out of line, for one thing, class based arguments have no place in this discussion. I come from old money, and my wife was born into old money in Charleston. That is what the Lincolnites want people to believe, that this is just a matter of the poorer elements of Southern society acting redneck.
Remember, political correctness seeks to kill all tradition, one of the finest examples of this was an edict passed by the New Orleans City Council about two decades ago that basically put an end to parades by the city's oldest Krewes.
I lived in Louisiana most of my life, you don't have to explain to me why it changed or how the democrats of today are not the democrats of yesterday.
I have no problem vilifying the democrats of today or yesterday, and can point out how they really only "change" to suit their need for power.
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