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.

[P-40]

Yet oddly enough the North continued to buy the products of the South that relied in part on the labor of slaves. Guess their ideology was not quite that deep.

[P-40]

how could they be legal

You answered your own question.

[Non-Sequitur]

Where are you getting that nonsense?

Reply 269 from 4CJ. He posted quotes allegedly showing 2 of the Slave Narrative interviewees preferred slavery and assumed for them life as a slave under the confederacy was better than freedom and life under reconstruction. Using his logic, then life for the other 2298, or 99.99%, of those interviewed must have been better under reconstruction since they didn't express a desire to return to slavery.

[orionblamblam]

> obviously, you are IGNORANT of history

SOUTH CAROLINA DECLARATION OF CAUSES OF SECESSION December 24, 1860

The people of the State of South Carolina in Convention assembled, on the 2d day of April, A.D. 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in ther withdrawal from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other Slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
...
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
...
But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress, or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own laws and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constitutional compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

Now, admittedly, the SC Declaration of Secession did not make it's points with the award-winning rhetoprical tactic of CAPS LOCK, but they *did* make it clear that they secceded due to concerns over slavery.

If you however believe that South Carolina secceded over tariff issues, feel free to point out where in the DoS the word tariff actually *appears.* Don't rush; I'll wait patiently.

http://aun.aescir.net/scarodec.htm

[orionblamblam]

See post 284. Debate it.

[Non-Sequitur]

Don't remember a slew of kind words about the invasion force either, during or after the War. What does that say about them?

I don't know. What does that say about them?

[Non-Sequitur]

Yet oddly enough the North continued to buy the products of the South that relied in part on the labor of slaves. Guess their ideology was not quite that deep.

Considering that the overwhelming majority of southern agricultural products were exported then that also says little about England and the rest of Europe I guess.

[P-40]

Reconstruction, such as it were, was not an easy time for whites...you can surely understand what it was like for the blacks. People may have wanted to end the practice of slavery but they were not so excited about helping the actual slaves.

[sten]

Is the Union Jack the flag of a failed nation that was beaten and done away with?

The English tried to wipe out the Scots and although the union jack is not solely an English flag, many associate it primarily with England.

as for the rebel flag... it boils down to a freedom of speech thing. some people fly rainbow flags, others fly rebel flags.

openmindedness, freedom, and tolerance are sticky like that.

[WildHorseCrash]

The Confederate Space Station has a nice ring to it.

When did they launch a double wide into space???

[Non-Sequitur]

You answered your own question.

Then let me be a little clearer. I am not aware of any evidence supporting your claim of tariffs on exports. Can you enlighten us by providing the details?

[orionblamblam]

> as for the rebel flag... it boils down to a freedom of speech thing.

Indeed it is. Rebel wannabes are free to fly their little flag. The rest of us are free to mock them for it.

[Xenophon450]

I am sure thats why many southerners of African descent fought for the south proudly and showed up at the CSA reunions afterwords...How many Jews fought for NAZI Germany???

[P-40]

What you post shows is that the South had a clear legal case in what they ran up the flag pole. Tariffs is not such an easy issue as it was a question over the perception of fairness. Spend some time reading the old newspapers and you will see what I mean.

"The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole...we have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty persent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually." --- Daily Chicago Times, December 10, 1860

"They (the South) know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interest.... These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. They (the North) are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto. They are as mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it." --- New Orleans Daily Crescent, January 21, 1861

"...the Union must obtain full victory as essential to preserve the economy of the country. Concessions to the South would lead to a new nation founded on slavery expansion which would destroy the U.S. Economy." --- Pamphlet No 14. "The Preservation of the Union A National Economic Necessity," The Loyal Publication Society, printed in New York, May 1863, by Wm. C. Bryant & Co. Printers

"What were the causes of the Southern independence movement in 1860? . . . Northern commercial and manufacturing interests had forced through Congress taxes that oppressed Southern planters and made Northern manufacturers rich . . . the South paid about three-quarters of all federal taxes, most of which were spent in the North." --- Charles Adams, "For Good and Evil. The impact of taxes on the course of civilization," 1993, Madison Books, Lanham, USA, pp. 325-327

By 1860 the export tariffs and import duties ramrodded through the Northern-dominated House had reduced most large landowners (and slaveowners) in the South to bankruptcy or the brink of bankruptcy. Southerners viewed their position as much like that of the American colonists prior to the Revolution - taxation without proper representation and payment to a government from which they gained no benefit. Many Southerners referred to the war as "The Second American Revolution."

[P-40]

see 294

[orionblamblam]

>Spend some time reading the old newspapers and you will see what I mean.

Just *wow.* So, I'm to ignore what the authors of the DoS for South Carolina wrote in favor of what *journalists* wrote.

That's *neat.*

[Non-Sequitur]

In fact the Union troops were first located at Ft. Moultrie on Sullivan's Island.

Anderson commanded all the army facilities in the Charleston area. That included Fort Sumter.

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.

There was no confederacy when Anderson moved his men to Sumter, only South Carolina had announced secession. Likewise there was no agreement preventing Anderson's move. Buchanan had agreed not to reinforce if the South Carolina forces agreed not to take over any federal property, and agreement they themselves violated by seizing Moultrie, Castle Pinkney, and the Charleson armory. Since the agreement had been violated, Buchanan's actions in trying to resupply and reinforce Sumter broke no agreement.

Yes the Feds were looking for a fight and provoked the South till it had no choice.

How did they provoke? They took no hostile actions, fired on no South Carolina targets, did not interfere with shipping in to and out of Charleston? What form did this provocation take?

It still could have ended right their, but Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers, and then invaded the sovereign borders of Virginia.

That's like saying it could have ended there but Roosevelt had to declare war over Pearl Harbor.

[Non-Sequitur]

Reconstruction, such as it were, was not an easy time for whites...you can surely understand what it was like for the blacks.

Reconstruction was enacted in part because of the southern treatment of blacks. Prior to that every soutehrn state had enacted Black Codes aimed at returning blacks to a state as closely resembling slavery as possible.

People may have wanted to end the practice of slavery but they were not so excited about helping the actual slaves.

Not much arguement there. But indifference to the fate of the freed slave is a bit different than opposition to freeing him in the first place.

[P-40]

No, you can read the old papers to see what items were of interest to the people of the time. If you can do that, you can understand the policies of the era. If you can't...stick to the comics.

[stand watie]

don't you wish that anything you said didn't cause intelligent FReepers to rotfl AT you???

do you really like being ONE of the butts of "inside jokes" on the forum??? (only "Mr SPIN" is laughed louder/more frequently at.)

free dixie,sw