Confederate flags on space station draw ire

MSNBC ^ | 6/13/06 | James Oberg

[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.

[orionblamblam]

Fort Sumter wasn't theirs to give up. It was Federal property. If California decided to seccede today, should the USAF abandon Vandenberg? If Florida secceded, should NASA walk away from Cape Canaveral? If your state secceded and decided to union with mexico, should *you* abandon your home?

[orionblamblam]

> And I've been at work for two hours now.

Wow. Who knew that there were Web terminals in "Sonic" restaurants?

:P

[usmcobra]

You do understand of course that for the Democrats the confederate flag make the prefect tar baby for all those voters they lost in the south.

That all you "real" sons of the south can be so easily misled only fuels the claims that the south is inbred.

[P-40]

Fort Sumter wasn't theirs to give up.

The reference was to slaves, an economic asset at the time.

[Non-Sequitur]

The South was dominated by agriculture. Why do you think they had so many slaves. It was not like the slaves in New York City that cleaned houses for the rich folks...

On the contrary, many, perhaps most slaves never saw the inside of a cotton gin. They worked as domestics or laborers in southern homes. Thomas Jackson, for example, was not a plantation owner, he was a teacher. Yet he owned as many as 10 slaves at one point in his life. Slavery was very much a middle-class institution with most slave owners owning fewer than 5 slaves.

that they paid for with the tariffs from the South.

Utter nonsense.

[P-40]

Who knew that there were Web terminals in "Sonic" restaurants?

You would know the ins and out of a teen hangout...

[Non-Sequitur]

Sherman shouldn't have led a pillaging mob through the South. That wasn't necessary to win. Lee never would have done that - hence Lee is remembered as a far greater American than Sherman. It's infuriating, I know......

Can't blame his army for not trying, just lack of opportunity. During both campaigns in the North the Army of Northern Virginia lived off the land, taking food and livestock from local farms, and engaging in sporadic looting. And they also found time to grab any free blacks they found floating around and send them back south to slavery.

[P-40]

I understand why southron supporters insist on holding themselves blameless anything and everything relating to starting the rebellion

The question is why do so many in the North see themselves as blameless when they had just as much if not more of a hand in starting the conflict.

[Non-Sequitur]

Just curious about something. How many slaves have you known and talked to about their slavery? I knew one and became friends with him. He used to tell me stories about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, but what I thought most interesting is that he told me he was treated much worse by black people than white people. He even told me that his "owner" treated him like family.

During the 1930's there was a WPA program to collect the interview living former slaves and record their memories of life under slavery. There are over 300 of them, most are available on the web, and I've read most of them at one time or another. In the vast majority of the cases the former slave didn't report any sort of abuse. Many of them even had fond memories of their former owners and weren't shy about saying so. Some said they were treated like family. All reported that life after slavery had been pretty hard, in many cases harder than life under slavery. But in all the inverviews I've read I cannot remember a single interviewee every saying that they wished they were still a slave. Doesn't that say something about the institution and it's effect on the slaves themselves?

[Non-Sequitur]

It had nothing to do with slavery. The war was rooted in conflicts over tariffs...

Then why did none of the compromise solutions floated by southern leaders mention tariffs? They all dealth with only slavery. Why is slavery by far the single most often mentioned reason for secession in the 4 Declarations of the Causes of Secession? Why, if tariffs were such a bone of contention, was one of the first actions of the confederate congress to implement a tariff? One which, by the way, protected some southern industries and was theoretically unconstitutional?

[Non-Sequitur]

... when General Stonewall Jackson built one of the first schools for black children.

Pure southron myth. Sunday schools for blacks were not uncommon in the south. Most southern churches felt it their duty to bring Christianity to the slaves. Jackson's Sunday school was far from the first and he didn't build it, it had been established at that church years prior to Jackson's joining. And you have to remember that some of the slaves at that school belonged to Jackson himself.

[smug]

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.

In fact the Union troops were first located at Ft. Moultrie on Sullivan's Island. The Confederacy was in Negotiations with the U.S. when Capt. Anderson moved his troops under the dark of night out to Ft. Sumter (a nonviolent act of Aggression) and then the U.S. tried to reinforce the fort by ship. Another nonviolent act of aggression. Yes the Feds were looking for a fight and provoked the South till it had no choice. It still could have ended right their, but Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers, and then invaded the sovereign borders of Virginia.

[Non-Sequitur]

... the Confederacy had no problem commissioning officers who were of African descent, and then having them command units made up of people who were of African descent.

Name one.

[Non-Sequitur]

You were quite certain of the function of the CSS Alabama a moment ago...

You're mistaking me for someone else. I haven't mention the Alabama.

[Non-Sequitur]

And why would the South give up an economic asset without compensation?

Sumter didn't belong to them in the first place.

[Smokin' Joe]

If the items are fraudulent, they should have been pulled, period.

As for the PC aspects, the 'ultimate liberal victimhood' has so damaged the heritage and history of this nation, it will be a miracle if history does not repeat itself. Just one more proof Ann Coulter is right.

Chains alone do not make a slave a slave. Only the lack of freedom, whether from confinement, servitude, or being browbeaten into submission can create that.

What greater tyranny than that which would suppress a heritage and the history that goes with it rather than learn about it, warts and all, and discuss it?

Instead, the PC march toward dhimmitude continues.

[P-40]

Then why did none of the compromise solutions floated by southern leaders mention tariffs?

Which time frame are you talking about? I'd certainly agree with you that towards the end of negotiations slavery became the central theme. It is hard to sound a rallying cry over tariffs but easy to do so over more tangible examples of your economic livelihood. Not to mention, it discouraged the French and the English from overt support.

The 'war over slavery' folks remind me of the moonbats that claim the war was sold as nothing but WMDs...when there were clearly other reasons given.

[DocRock]

"All reported that life after slavery had been pretty hard, in many cases harder than life under slavery. But in all the inverviews I've read I cannot remember a single interviewee every saying that they wished they were still a slave. Doesn't that say something about the institution and it's effect on the slaves themselves?"

I agree, however, my question was posted as a result of the south being compared to the Nazis.

FReegards,
DocRock

[P-40]

Sumter didn't belong to them in the first place.

The reference was to slaves, an economic asset at the time.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

BTTT!