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 ...
Ouch!
> Pull out a map and see which army invaded which lands. Then tell us who is the aggressor.
The South attacked Fort Sumter, which was a US Federal military establishment. So, like Japan, which attacked Pearl Harbor and the Aleutians but did little else in the way of "invading" the US, the South launched an aggressive war.
Such a blanket claim is impossible to support. Hundreds of blockade runners flew the confederate flag during the war, making trips to and from Cuba. It's likely that some slaves made the trip back into the confederacy.
And there's this. The most recent issue of "North and South" magazine has an article on confederate privateers. In the article they mention two instances where Northern ships were seized and all the crew removed except for a single black member, the intent being to take the ship back to confederate ports and sell the black man into slavery thus increasing the financial return. The only reason these two examples are mentioned is because in both cases the black crewman overpowered or killed some or all of the confederate prize crew and returned the ship to Northern waters. It is impossible to believe that these were the only cases, so no doubt some prizes, flying confederate flags, took slaves back into the confederacy.
Finally it is well documented that during both the 1862 and 1863 campaigns in the North, the confederate army seized free blacks and took them south to slavery. So unless you want to make a distiction between sailing under the confederate flag or marching under it I fail to see the difference.
> I wonder why no one else has responded to your very informitive post?
Because the words of the Confederacy confound the claims of those who today see the war as "not about slavery." The state constitutions and declaratiosn nof seccession of the time make it quite clear *why* they secceded.. not because their problem was tarrifs of tax policy, but because they wanted to remain slave-states.
Ah but only the southern states were willing to launch a bloody rebellion to defend it. The Northern states ended if peacefully.
> Like I thought. Another teenager
Nope. Not owning any slaves, I have to hold down a job, and getting to bed at a reasonable hour is often required to be able to accomplish that. Perhaps you should look into that novel concept.
> the State of Alabama is opposed to reopening the African Slave Trade.
Yes... because they already had quite enough slaves, and didn't need to import more. This was a cost-free political move to make themselves more palatable to the likes of Great Britain.
> It sounds to me like you are offended by the historical facts of the United States of America
It sounds to me like you are confused. The flag of the United States was not used as a symbol by those who attacked Americans to *support* and *maintain* slave-owning rights.
So? Fort Sumter was still the property of the federal government. Why should they turn it over to South Carolina or the confederacy just because they demanded it? Without compensation I might add.
Sounds like the Federal Government was looking to start a fight to me.
Sounds like the Federal Government was trying to hold on to it's property to me. The garrison at Sumter took absolutely no hostile actions against Charleston or the shipping in and out of the port.
States did have the right to secede from the Union.
But not in the manner the southern states chose to follow. Or so the Supreme Court ruled.
Or Robert Lee and Thomas Jackson.
I understand why southron supporters insist on holding themselves blameless anything and everything relating to starting the rebellion, but this is a new one on me. Why is Jim Crow the responsibility of the North? After all it was a system supported by virtually all white southerners for close to 100 years following Reconstruction's end.
The war could have also been avoided if the Davis regime allowed Lincoln to resupply Sumter with food, it's all he had to do.
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