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Confederate flag a national issue?
WND ^ | February 3, 2004 | Les Kinsolving

Posted on 02/03/2004 9:54:29 AM PST by stainlessbanner

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Following Thursday night's Democratic Candidates' debate in Greenville's Peace Center, South Carolina's U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, when asked about the issue of the Confederate flag, replied: "Don't worry about it. It's not an issue anymore."

But it was indeed an issue, in that NBC's debate moderator Tom Brokaw raised this issue during the presidential candidates' debates.

Candidate and Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich replied that because of the NAACP boycott of the entire state of South Carolina (due to one Confederate flag flying on the state capitol grounds at a Confederate war memorial) he was spending the nights outside South Carolina.

Candidate Al Sharpton denounced the Confederate flag as representing a movement built on slavery.

After the debate, I was able to interview Sharpton.

WND: Are you going to campaign in Mississippi?

SHARPTON: I'm going to campaign in Mississippi.

WND: And you're going to condemn their state flag?

SHARPTON: Absolutely! Unequivocally!

WND: It was voted by a huge majority including a lot of blacks.

SHARPTON: It was still wrong. You had some blacks in the Confederate army.

WND: That's right! I'm delighted you recognized that.

SHARPTON: They were wrong. Absolutely.

Sen. Lieberman held a similar view, while being surprised at the fact there were black soldiers in the Confederate army.

WND: Senator, do you agree with your fellow candidates Sharpton and Edwards that the Confederate flag should be banned from any public display, even on courthouse memorials in every town in the South?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: The Confederate flag is a symbol that is offensive to people. It's not just African-Americans -- because it represents slavery.

WND: You would ban it?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: I've said this very clearly. I'd certainly take it off the statehouse grounds. The Confederate flag is part of history. It's not part we're proud of. The only place it would belong in my opinion would be in a museum case. Otherwise, to give it any public honor is offensive and divisive. It takes us backward and not forward. And frankly it does not represent the kind of coming together that I see here in South Carolina across racial lines.

WND: How about the black Confederate soldiers? There were a lot of them.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well you'd have to ask somebody else about that!

So, we asked somebody else: Gen. Wesley Clark.

WND: General, do you believe it's wrong for the people of Mississippi to have in their state flag the Confederate battle flag for which they voted overwhelmingly -- including blacks.

GEN. CLARK: I'd like to see the American flag.

WND: I'm asking you about.

GEN. CLARK: I'm telling you about the American flag! That's what I like to see.

WND: But you don't want to comment on that. Are you going to go to Mississippi?

Gen. Clark declined to answer and went to another reporter.

By very notable contrast to Sharpton and his fellow presidential Confederate flag-bashers, South Carolina Democratic Congressman James Clyburn (whose endorsement of Sen. John Kerry was regarded by the front-runner as significant enough for a special news conference) had the following to say about this issue.

WND: Congressman, do you feel that I have violated the NAACP's boycott of South Carolina because I'm going to spend the night here?

REP. CLYBURN: Oh, I don't know. You'll have to ask the NAACP people. I've made it very clear what my position is on that. And my position has been stated out there for a long time. Because I believe the compromise that was reached by the black legislators and the white legislators over the current position of that flag, gives us an interim solution that we ought to live with for a while. And maybe at some point in the future revisit it. As it stands now, that was a compromise voted for by every single black legislator, save one who did not vote, but abstained from voting. Everybody else supported it, and therefore I support it.

On the other side of the South Carolina capitol building there is a new monument to African-American history -- including blacks in Union army uniforms. Around the building is a marker noting the site of South Carolina's first capitol building: "Burned by Sherman's troops" in 1865.

One of Congressman Clyburn's staff told me that in Darlington, S.C., there is a Confederate War memorial to one of that army who was black.

Would Democratic candidates Edwards, Lieberman and Sharpton all be in favor of tearing down this memorial to a brave Confederate soldier who was black?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Mississippi; US: South Carolina
KEYWORDS: 2004; confederate; confederateflag; dixielist; flag; issues; leekinsolving; leskinsolving; politics; sc
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1 posted on 02/03/2004 9:54:31 AM PST by stainlessbanner
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To: *dixie_list; U S Army EOD; CurlyBill; w_over_w; BSunday; PeaRidge; RebelBanker; PistolPaknMama; ...
the candidates weigh in
2 posted on 02/03/2004 9:55:06 AM PST by stainlessbanner
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To: stainlessbanner
If this were from anyone other than Les Kinsolving, I would not believe it!
3 posted on 02/03/2004 10:01:29 AM PST by RebelBanker (Deo Vindice)
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To: stainlessbanner
Candidate and Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich replied that because of the NAACP boycott of the entire state of South Carolina (due to one Confederate flag flying on the state capitol grounds at a Confederate war memorial) he was spending the nights outside South Carolina.

Seems like a good way to keep less than desirable people out of the state, to me. However, this did mean that the Masters Inn out on I-21 lost out on a body to fill a single... Not that Dennis has any money left to pay anyway.

4 posted on 02/03/2004 10:10:26 AM PST by Kenton ("Life is tough, and it's really tough when you're stupid" - Damon Runyon)
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To: stainlessbanner
The sad thing is that of the three candidates mentioned. Sharpton gave the most direct and reasonable answer (even though I disagree). And Clark's answer . . . WOW!!! What a moron.
5 posted on 02/03/2004 10:10:49 AM PST by Texas Federalist
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To: RebelBanker
Similar to the Darlington statue, the Confederate Soldier's Memorial at Arlington includes a black soldier.

The Jewish sculptur Moses Jacob Ezekiel wanted to show the true composition of the southern army: It depicts an armed, uniformed black Confederate soldier marching in step with his white comrades and a white Confederate soldier handing his small child to a black woman for safe keeping as he goes off to war.

I believe you can see the scene on the right on this picture

6 posted on 02/03/2004 10:15:38 AM PST by stainlessbanner
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To: stainlessbanner
The Confederate flag flying on SC state property is only an issue so long as it benefits a candidate. Tomorrow it will be a forgotten cause for another four years.
7 posted on 02/03/2004 10:17:02 AM PST by Between the Lines (Tag Stolen - - - New Tag Applied For)
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To: All
close ups of the Arlington Confederate Soldiers Monument.
8 posted on 02/03/2004 10:18:14 AM PST by stainlessbanner
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To: stainlessbanner
"Would Democratic candidates Edwards, Lieberman and Sharpton all be in favor of tearing down this memorial to a brave Confederate soldier who was black?"

Of course they would - bad-mouthing the Confederacy is a part of the liberal Yankee mantra.

9 posted on 02/03/2004 10:19:48 AM PST by Redbob
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To: Texas Federalist; stainlessbanner
"And Clark's answer . . . WOW!!! What a moron."


Not only did he refuse to acknowledge the fact that every state has its own flag, and that Mississippi's happens to include the Confederate battle flag in its canton, but he doesn't see the irony of saying that the Confederate flag "stands for slavery" but the U.S. flag doesn't, when it was the Stars and Stripes that was flown on every slave ship coming to America for over a century, and the Stars and Stripes was our national flag during the many decades in which a majority or a near majority of states permitted slavery.
10 posted on 02/03/2004 10:27:13 AM PST by AuH2ORepublican (Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.)
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To: stainlessbanner
the candidates weigh in

The candidates weigh in puss out.

Fixed it for ya! ;-)

Why can't these morons recognize that it's up to the State?

11 posted on 02/03/2004 10:27:48 AM PST by TomServo ("Why does the most evil man in the world live in a Stuckeys?")
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To: stainlessbanner
What those race-baiters fail to realize is that in 1861, as a percentage of population, there were TWO AND THREE-QUARTER TIMES more free blacks living in the South than there were the North.
12 posted on 02/03/2004 10:49:21 AM PST by azhenfud ("He who is always looking up seldom finds others' lost change...")
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To: AuH2ORepublican
You raise an excellent point, but I think you are giving "Wes" too much credit by reading into his answer more than is there. Did he think he was being smooth in his complete evasion of a legitimate question? Did he think few would notice? He is as out of touch with how others view him as that Korean kid who sang "She Bangs" in the San Francisco tryouts for American Idol.
13 posted on 02/03/2004 10:49:45 AM PST by Texas Federalist
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To: TomServo
"Why can't these morons recognize that it's up to the State?"

Old Abe St. Lincoln fixed that in 1865

14 posted on 02/03/2004 10:53:00 AM PST by azhenfud ("He who is always looking up seldom finds others' lost change...")
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To: azhenfud
What those race-baiters fail to realize is that in 1861, as a percentage of population, there were TWO AND THREE-QUARTER TIMES more free blacks living in the South than there were the North.

Good info. Didn't know that. How about the fact that during the civil war there was still legal slavery in the Union? The emancipation proclamation also didn't apply to slaves living in the North. They were freed by the 13th Amendment, eight months after the conclusion of the war.

15 posted on 02/03/2004 10:53:45 AM PST by Texas Federalist
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To: stainlessbanner
"...The Confederate flag is part of history. It's not part we're proud of. The only place it would belong in my opinion would be in a museum case..."

Funny, I've never heard him complaining about the mexican flag and it's an obsolete part of "our" history as well.

Oops. I keep forgetting that THAT south is indeed rising again.

16 posted on 02/03/2004 10:54:09 AM PST by norton
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To: azhenfud
Old Abe St. Lincoln fixed that in 1865

And to this day, nobody challenges it.

17 posted on 02/03/2004 10:59:09 AM PST by TomServo ("Why does the most evil man in the world live in a Stuckeys?")
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To: stainlessbanner
It depicts an armed, uniformed black Confederate soldier marching in step with his white comrades and a white Confederate soldier handing his small child to a black woman for safe keeping as he goes off to war.

Kudos to Moses Jacob Ezekiel.

18 posted on 02/03/2004 11:02:02 AM PST by 4CJ (||) Support free speech and stop CFR - visit www.ArmorforCongress.com (||)
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To: stainlessbanner
!!!!!!!
19 posted on 02/03/2004 11:02:03 AM PST by stand watie (Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. -T. Jefferson)
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To: stainlessbanner
Actually, I'm in favor of ALL the race baiters who want to abolish every vestige of the Confederacy. The sooner they succeed, the better we will be.

Before you start flaming me, let me finish. If we abolish every vestige of the Confederacy, we eliminate every and all evidence of slavery. If there was no Confederacy, there could never have been slavery, nor was there a Civil War. If NONE of things things occurred, there is no justification for reparations becuase slavery never existed in the US because there was never any Confederacy.

History, no matter how hard the revisionists try to change it, is immutable. Emotionalism invested in such things as slavery and reparations arguments are temporal and transient in time. The sooner we abolish the justification for the emotional argument, the sooner that history can begin to resurrect the truth about the Confederacy.
20 posted on 02/03/2004 11:06:05 AM PST by DustyMoment (Repeal CFR NOW!!)
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