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The Marine Corps' top general explains his decision to ban Confederate flag displays on bases
Business Insider ^ | April 23, 2020 | Gina Harkins

Posted on 04/25/2020 1:44:08 PM PDT by Retain Mike

The Marine Corps' top general has issued a rallying cry for leathernecks to unite around symbols that bring them together, rather than those that divide, as he moves to prohibit the Confederate flag on all installations.

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: confederate; corps; flag; marine
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To: DesertRhino

Mexico banned slavery in 1829, yet fifty years later there were still slave raids into the US to capture Indians for sale as slaves in Mexico.

The US Army’s attempt in the 1870s to enforce the 13th Amendment among the Plains Indian tribes caused lots of problems as the tribes had lots of Indians from other tribes and Mexicans held as slaves.

Wonder if they would have a fit if some American Indian Marine had the Cherokee or Choctaw Confederate flag hanging on the wall.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Flag_of_the_Cherokee_Braves.svg/440px-Flag_of_the_Cherokee_Braves.svg.png

https://confederate.ultimateflags.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Choctaw-Flag-2-300x180.png


21 posted on 04/25/2020 2:13:26 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Retain Mike

A very good friend of mine, was a sergeant in the army. 1990s. Bought and wore a shirt with a Confederate flag and the motto, “It’s a white thing. You wouldn’t understand.” This was in response to blacks wearing shirts with the same saying, however, with Malcolm X, MLK, and other’s pictures emblazoned therein.

Long story short, he was demoted to private and discharged from the service over it.

I don’t know the details as if he was an admitted racist in front of the commander. I never seen that in him though. The minorities were never questioned over their T shirts, and back then, it was very promonent amongst them. He was the first martyr that I was aware of.


22 posted on 04/25/2020 2:14:34 PM PDT by Deepeasttx
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To: Retain Mike

People like this general will promote the sodomite flag.

His motives are not pure.


23 posted on 04/25/2020 2:15:38 PM PDT by UnwashedPeasant (Trump is solving the world's problems only to distract us from Russia.)
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To: rktman

Stars and bars is not the Confederate Battle Flag.
The St Andrew’s Cross was incorporated in the second and third National Flags of the Confederacy, but not the first.

How about the “Bonnie Blue Flag that wears a single star.”


24 posted on 04/25/2020 2:17:18 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

I believe the stars and bars deemed THE rebel flag was actually a Confederate Navy Jack. I could be wrong. Buehler?


25 posted on 04/25/2020 2:19:01 PM PDT by rktman ( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Correction, it was the 2nd Confederate Navy Jack. I was close.


26 posted on 04/25/2020 2:23:26 PM PDT by rktman ( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: Retain Mike

The last slaves in the United States were freed in New Jersey. The Emancipation Proclamation only freed southern slaves, and this after there were no Southerners in congress. I say we ban Marines from New Jersey as a gesture of unity. Who’s with me? Also let’s tear down some statues.


27 posted on 04/25/2020 2:30:26 PM PDT by golux (In Memory of Kenny Bunk)
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To: Retain Mike
Sons and Daughters of the Confederate is very much Honored and Respected in Our Family. With some even receiving Scholarships from them. If offends oh Well, To shop at the Military bases in 68 in California you had to drive through protesters. September 29 1968 a recent returning Soldier and I were trying to get through the gates at Travis AFB to pick up my returning Husband, they were throwing tomatoes and eggs at our Vehicle. He stepped out told them he was going through with them stuck to the Grill or not. Somethings are worth fighting for and the right to Display this Flag is one.
28 posted on 04/25/2020 2:33:23 PM PDT by easternsky
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To: rktman

The Russian navy had a similar St Andrew’s Cross naval jack with a thin white cross on it. No stars though. Bet flying it would still cause someone in the US to go bonkers.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Naval_Jack_of_Russia.svg/1599px-Naval_Jack_of_Russia.svg.png


29 posted on 04/25/2020 2:33:42 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

If there is a cross involved, you’re automatically a hateful person. Yeah, that’s how they process things.


30 posted on 04/25/2020 2:36:58 PM PDT by rktman ( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: Deepeasttx

“Racism” is only if someone with white skin, such as a Jew who never owned slaves, exhibits such a thing as a confederate flag.

(No confederate tattoos are permitted in the US Armed Forces. It is an immediate dismissal.)

People “of color” rule our nation and they determine what is just and unjust, who is “of color,” and who is not.


31 posted on 04/25/2020 2:39:50 PM PDT by golux (In Memory of Kenny Bunk)
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To: Retain Mike

There is not one person alive today in the USMC who grew up knowing a Civil War veteran. The reason that Confederate symbols and veteran gatherings were tolerated by the victors rather than erased was originally because it was thought at the time that humiliating the defeated further was counterproductive to the goal of the North which all along was preserving the Union. Having mercy and allowing Confederate veterans grow old with dignity was more useful towards the objective of healing the nation’s wounds than denying them that dignity would have been. Had the victors been vindictive, the war would have been prolonged by violent, resentful holdouts.

But the time is long past where the nation’s prosperity and unity is threatened by unhappy humiliated rebels and it’s no longer necessary to mollify the sons, grandsons or even great grandsons of Confederates to keep them in service because there aren’t any left in the game who can take the ball and go home.

Now, we have recently had a shortage of recruits [though the self-imposed economic crisis may help fill spots] and if confederate symbols now act more as obstacles to the mission and to recruitment and retention than they can possibly contribute to it, then it is time to set them aside in museums and geneaologists’ closets so it cannot be used by our enemies to agitate and sap our strength.


32 posted on 04/25/2020 2:39:51 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: Retain Mike

With the govt really crushing freedom at the moment, I suspect they don’t want any flag of resistance being remembered.


33 posted on 04/25/2020 2:40:30 PM PDT by Carry me back (Cut the feds by 90%)
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To: faucetman
I'm with you there, but I still believe the Confederate flag is appropriate flying over our cemeteries.   My paternal Great Grandfather mustered out as a brevet Captain of the 29th Alabama Infantry Regiment.   My maternal Great Great Grandfather was also in a different company of the 29th Alabama Infantry Regiment.

I say ban any unofficial flag that causes strife among Marines.

34 posted on 04/25/2020 2:48:29 PM PDT by higgmeister ( In the Shadow of The Big Chicken)
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To: Retain Mike

Sure General. They better change the patch of the US Army National Guard’s 29th “Blue and Gray” Division while they are at it, and remove any signs of that patch from the headstones of those guys killed on the Easy Green, Dog Red, Dog White, and Dog Green sectors of Omaha beach too....

Once these “woke” trends get started, they spread like “Wuhan Flu” throughout the entire armed forces!!!


35 posted on 04/25/2020 3:00:43 PM PDT by DMZFrank
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To: Verginius Rufus
The overall American commander during the battle of Okinawa, Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., was the son of a Confederate general.

He was the highest ranking officer to be killed in the Pacific theater in World War II.

36 posted on 04/25/2020 3:14:16 PM PDT by MuttTheHoople
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To: golux

I had a buddy in Nam who had a rebel battle flag (subdued) stitched to his helmet cover. He had a great grandfather who was killed at Shiloh fighting for the Confederacy. The brothers (including me) in my outfit used to get in dust-ups with him all the time over it, but he wouldn’t back down.

This guy risked his life to save mine when I got pinned down in an ambush. After that, I got to know him very well. He was one of the finest men that I ever knew. He was just proud of his southern heritage, and I doubt that he had any more racism in his soul than any one else, and probably far less.

We kept in touch after the war, but he was killed in an industrial action in 1986. I miss him and love him like a brother, because that is what he was (is).


37 posted on 04/25/2020 3:14:57 PM PDT by DMZFrank
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To: x

American soldiers flew the Confederate Battle Flag (it’s not just a naval jack) during the Civil War. American soldiers fighting America’s wars under the Stars and Stripes have taken and displayed that Southern battle flag onto bases and into war zones ever since. My unit in Vietnam had some; my son’s unit in Iraq had some. It is a matter of pride of heritage to many of the best and most loyal troops the US armed forces has ever had. I, and others, take it as a personal insult when the battle flag and the soldiers who have fought and died carrying it are insulted and disrespected. It is the general who banned it from the bases who is being ignorant and divisive, not the battle flag.


38 posted on 04/25/2020 3:19:48 PM PDT by myerson
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To: mason-dixon

That would have to be the SecNav, SecDef or Trump.


39 posted on 04/25/2020 3:51:23 PM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Retain Mike
The Confederate battle flag has become divisive for people who embrace a modern, popular political agenda.

You are exactly right. Anecdotal evidence is my experience growing up north of the Mason-Dixon line. I have always had a healthy respect for the south, but I would have been a staunch abolitionist in the mid-19th century. I am not the least bit offended by the Confederate Battle flag. There was not a divisive connotation associated with it that I can recall growing up some 40-50 years ago. I retain the same values and ideas from my formative years. It seems only people my age that buy into progressive politics have changed their views over time.

40 posted on 04/25/2020 3:58:50 PM PDT by ConservativeInPA (It's official! I'm nominated for the 2020 Mr. Hyperbole and Sarcasm Award.)
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