Posted on 10/19/2004 5:14:54 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
As I drove down 5th street yesterday, I spied a bumper sticker that addresses an issue I have been waiting for an excuse to write about. It was in the back window of a pickup truck, whose ability to operate I found simply amazing, strategically situated between an empty gun rack and another sticker depicting Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame) urinating on "Osama" with a devilish grin on his face.
I will leave the "Osama" reference and defamation of an innocent newspaper comic strip character alone for the purposes of this article, and will concentrate on the content of the other bumper sticker. It was a simple, Confederate flag, next to which was written the words, "Heritage not Hate". Now, if I have ever read something more deserving of one of my diatribes, I cannot recall.
This statement, which for the record I believe to be sheer nonsense, speaks of an issue with which I had very limited experience before relocating to North Carolina, but an issue of importance nonetheless.
All my life, the Confederate flag was something of a joke to me. M history classes in high school and earlier had taught me that the Confederate defeat during the Civil War was a good thing, that the moral argument against slavery (espoused by the Lincoln government in Washington) was a black and white issue, about right and wrong, and that the Union triumph is 1865 was righteous.
Granted, the history I was taught spoke from a biased perspective, from the moral high ground of the abolitionists and northern intellectuals, and never really addressed the true, underlying reasons for the Civil War, which I would come to learn much later. After considering all the information I have been able to locate on the subject, after long hours of trying to understand just where the Confederacy was coming from and why they wanted to defend their way of life, I have come to a few conclusions.
Naturally, these conclusions reflect my upbringing and Northern perspective, and I am more than confident than my loyal readers will have more than a few comments of their own to contribute.
First of all, "Heritage not Hate", is an extreme cop out. Sure, the Confederate flag, displayed in the year 2004, some 140 years after the actual conflict ended, may stand for some long forgotten Southern pride issue. It may stand for the struggles that people in the Southeastern region of the United States suffered through and the wars that they fought.
It may stand for some perceived difference between the North and South, which apparently has persisted to this day, and may fondly recall the era of Southern dominance of the United States.
Woops, little mistake there. The South has never "dominated" anything. It is another region within the greater whole, just as it was then and remains so today. As for the "Not Hate" part of the bumper sticker, a more laughable statement I cannot recall. There are far too many damning coincidences that will forever relegate the Stars and Bars to the level of racist propaganda.
Why is it that hate groups all over the country, to this day, fly the Confederate flag as a symbol of their ideology. White Supremacist organizations,
, the sad, pitiful remnants of the Klu Klux Klan, along with many other neo-Nazi and racially motivated groups all include the Confederate flag amongst their symbols of worship.
Is this coincidence? Are people who fly the Confederate flag, be it in bumper sticker form or on the end of a flagpole, trying to align themselves with such openly evil and backward-thinking organizations? I don't think so. I think that people fly the flag to recall the once glorious Confederated states of America and celebrate their history, while at the same time somehow overlooking the racial implications inherent in the very symbol they hold so high.
Make no mistake. Whether you choose to recognize it or not, the fact remains the same: The Confederate flag is a racist symbol. It was during the Civil War, it remains so today. I challenge anyone to show me an African-American person with a Confederate Flag bumper sticker or "The South will rise again" written in their computers screensaver.
Is this a coincidence? You would sooner find a swastika flying outside the Israel embassy as you would a Confederate flag flying at an N.A.A.C.P rally. To me, the symbols have long been morally relative to each other. Both stand for hate, oppression, and the wanton murder and destruction of a group of people because of some perceived inferiorities. Plantation owners in the South, before and during the Civil War, treated slaves the same way they treated horses and sheep.
They were not human beings, quite the contrary. They could be bought and sold like farm equipment and with as much compassion. So to during the Nazi era in Germany; Jews were not considered people in the same way that German citizens were, therefore their wholesale murder could be justified. Anyone who cannot see the glaring similarities between the Confederate flag and the Swastika needs to pick up a history book and do some research.
If you care to display a symbol that represents the brutality and viciousness and lack of humanity that was involved in something like the slave trade, as the Confederate flag clearly does, you are entitled. The first Amendment to the Constitution allows you the freedom to display just about whatever you care to, but consider this. If you are going to fly the Stars and Bars, don't sugar coat it. Don't downplay the racial aspects and idealize the cultural aspects. They are one in the same.
Be up front and honest about your feelings. Confederacy= Hate I think would be a far more realistic bumper sticker, and as we speak I am in negotiations to have a number of said bumper stickers produced. Let us just call a spade a spade and forget about the "Heritage not Hate" nonsense. It is hateful, you know it is, and beating around the bush about it only takes away from the power of the argument. Let the responsive mud slinging commence!
you don't want to confuse the damnyankees.free dixie,sw
If you think that the South were agressors, than why were Peace Commissioners from the Confederate Government trying to persuade the Feds to handover the fort from Dec 1860 until April 1861?
The so-called 'Peace Commissioners' were not authorized by the confederate congress until February 1861. And their purpose was to obtain recognition of confederate sovereignty from the Lincoln Administration and only then negotiate on issues such as who owned what. Unless Lincoln was willing to surrender to southern demands then there was nothing to negoitate. The southern delegation was not willing to discuss an end to the rebellion. So the south chose aggression in the form of bombarding Sumter.
He took a course guaranteed to provoke conflict.
The south could have avoided conflict by waiting Lincoln out. Instead, after a half-hearted attempt at negotiation, they chose war. And suffered the consequences.
You are assuming that the south was in the right. I believe that their actions were wrong. So from your point of view wrong should always triumph over right?
Liberalism tends to rot the mind.
There must be other causes then, assuming your not a liberal like you claim.
George Orwell put it much better than me....I should read up on the subject. This tendency is universal and very much human nature.
Jefferson Davis believed in slavery to the day he died. Prior to the rebellion, on the one documented instance where he was asked what would happen if slavery ended, he said that be believed that the best solution was to deport all black people to Central or South America. So who was worse?
have you considered joining natvan?
I've read a lot of the Slave Narratives that were collected by the WPA back in the 1930's. In quite a few of those narratives, one might even say in the majority of those narratives, the former slave spoke fondly of their old owners. But I can't remember a single one where the former slave said that they wished they were still a slave. Did Mr. Stewart say that in his interview?
Well, whether it was "half-hearted" or not is a matter for conjecture. I believe that peace could have been had. Lincoln, however was not the man of the hour for that purpose.
Yet he was not the first one to resort to armed conflict. That was Jeff Davis.
Which debates did you mean? I had assumed that you were talking of the Lincoln-Douglas debates but I looked in there and Lincoln said nothing remotely resembling that remark. Can you be a little more specific?
Jefferson, made a speech on Courthouse road...
Davis (I assume you mean him) made a lot of speeches, most of which are not worth reading. What bearing does this quote have on our discussions?
Most of us would probably agree that in some ways, 19th century America didn't come up to some of the standards for political and social morality we have today, though in other areas, their virtues were greater than our own. So nobody is going to come out of this pure and without sin, including ourselves. If we do recognize real moral values we'll find things wrong with both sides. Neither side accepted modern ideas of racial equality.
Nevertheless if one assumes that there was something wrong in the expansion and defense of slavery one would have to conclude that there was much that was particularly objectionable in the rebel cause. No amount of pettifogging can conceal that accepting the existence of slavery wasn't quite the same thing as wanting to preserve and spread the institution.
I think that that outweighs the vices on the other side, but that certainly doesn't prevent me from recognizing the savagery of the war, the sufferings of the South, or the venality of many on the Northern side. Nor does it prevent me from recognizing the courage and endurance of Southern soldiers and civilians or from admitting that the majority of them weren't fighting explicitly or solely or chiefly for slavery. I don't have any desire or right to hang a scarlet letter on them, but I also can't simply ignore the role of slavery in bringing about secession and war.
Surely we ought to be able to take this in stride at this point, as we don't passionately argue about how the rights and wrongs of the Franco-Prussian war reflect on Frenchmen or Germans. Do the rights and wrongs of that war really matter so much now? Surely the great differences are between the US and other countries and between what we once were and what we are, rather than between this or that particular faction. Do you feel "oppressed" because your ancestors cause might not have been the most morally pure in history?
I don't feel compelled to keep repeating that "the South was wrong." As with any war there was right and wrong on both sides, and much that was mechanical, if not inevitable in the outbreak of hostilities. It all happened so long ago that I'd be glad to let bygones be bygones, and not bring up the "late unpleasantness." But all of the crowing about Southern victimhood, or how "the South was right" or how the Confederates' fight is our fight now, certainly cries out for someone to speak up for the Unionists and provide a different light on things. And I try to do that.
Take care lest you end up with a philosophy of thoroughgoing moral equivalence or relativism or tribalistic insistence that what one's own group believes is always right. There's a lot in this "we cannot have been wrong" attitude that runs parallel with contemporary multiculturalism, and much in the struggle for validation, or recognition, or liberation that suggests the excesses of the 1960s, when political action was seen as a way to resolve one's own internal conflicts and conquer group feelings of insecurity, guilt, or shame. Much of this resentment, combattiveness, and hurt pride conceals the fact that one lives in a society that has, in comparison with others, been very fortunate.
Little Bunny Fru Fru hopping through the forest, then...whack, right on the head.....
Oh puleeze! Send me the link to any yankee heritage site. What would that be, algore.com? How about the Order of Yankee Rose. The Sons of Yankee Veterans. The League of the North. Daughters of the Yankees. Anything that denotes that the yankees are proud of their heritage.
Truth: there is no proud yankee heritage. There is nothing to be proud of. Certainly if you provide anything to the contrary (that doesn't contain the word "lincoln") then I will consider your heritage.
The people in the north were probably well-meaning sheeple, much like the sheeple of today.
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