Posted on 11/23/2004 7:56:42 AM PST by Land_of_Lincoln_John
While images of the Confederate flag have been taboo on Thornton Fractional South High School grounds since the early 1990s, school officials say they have removed two more representations that apparently had been overlooked. The Confederate flag became part of the school's logo after the school's construction in 1958, and the student body voted the Rebel as its mascot. The Confederate flag was removed from the logo in 1993.
This year, in response to complaints from several parents, Principal John Hallberg said the school has painted over part of a 30-foot mural given as a gift from the class of 1982.
The mural, which features pictures of high-profile students from that year, had two blue bars that crossed on a red background in the form of an X.
"If you just looked at it, you probably would not have seen it," Hallberg said of the resemblance to the Confederate flag. "But if somebody said, 'Hey, doesn't that look like a Confederate flag?' it would be a lot easier to see."
Also gone is a suit vest made of a Confederate flag worn by a former principal on "school pride" days.
The vest had become part of a display case showing Civil War-era memorabilia donated by the class of 1965.
As for the mural, Hallberg has commissioned the artist to update the work as a gift from the class of 2005.
"We're going to leave the original mural up there in terms of the pictures of the kids, but we're going to update it to reflect our current school," Hallberg said.
School officials took down the Civil War display while the school is under construction and will reinstall it without the vest, Hallberg said.
I *love* the PC police! Think how much better things will be in 2008 when Hillary becomes President?
thag
Have they banned Lynard Skynard's music, too?
Yep, the left is doing what it does best; airbrushing what they dont like from history as they rewrite it.
What do they intend to do about the American flag? It flew on slave ships, and over America for 100 years of slave ownership. The Confederate battle flag only flew for 4 years during the Civil War.
This whole "Confederate Flag Ban" stuff is so trite and stupid.
How long before the Confederate flag is removed from paintings of battles of the Civil War?
d-i-x-i-e ping
These people need to understand how much they OWE the South.
Loose lips sink ships!! Do you want the DU lurkers to act on that!
"We're going to leave the original mural up there in terms of the pictures of the kids, but we're going to update it to reflect our current school," Hallberg said.."
So now they will airbrush in a Mexican flag ?
good point. maybe a mexican flag + hammer + sickle just for good measure.
i hope that happens while i still am alive to CELEBRATE!
free dixie,sw
"The soldiers of modern PC have successfully put the establishment of Western tradition on the defensive. Meanwhile, they have effectively killed free speech at the universities, in discussion, in the mainstream media, and among various groups of Americans, and stunted the growth of creativity and art, as well as political discussion. The result is the balkanization of America and the growing radicalization of various groups of Americans fed up with the fact that their free speech and their belief in constitutional government and the Bill of Rights are being destroyed.
PC is more dangerous than communism because it has taken the moral high ground through manipulation of the facts and denial of the truth.
Grounded in egalitarianism, PC is of the same milieu as that of the French Revolution. Maximilien Robespierre, the French lawyer and chief butcher of that revolution, was probably the first adherent of PC.
The bloody terror of that time was not nearly as cruel and bloody toward the rich and the noble in Paris as it was toward the people in the countryside of France. The blood of ordinary French people who dared speak against the "terror" ran freely in the streets of every province and town in France; ordinary people were massacred by the thousands.
To the first soldiers of PC, "liberty and fraternity" were concepts applied to citizens who went along with its excesses and supported completely the leaders of the massive bloodletting. Even those who followed the new regime in sheep-like fashion were not spared. They died like everyone else, rich or poor, screaming their allegiance to the Revolution and to the leadership of the Revolution.
Whether it is the PC mind-set of today or that of the French Revolution, free speech is only free when it follows PC notions of what is or is not allowed, and even then you might not be safe.
Today PC culture and philosophy are doing a much better job of creating the New Age totalitarian state than communism or the French Revolution were able to do. It is succeeding because it uses the language and the innate sense of decency of most Americans and of the Western tradition, which they have absorbed through their culture, religion, and the tenets contained in the Founding documents.
The sensible and fair American understands that the country has never been perfect. Most Americans know that various groups of people have been abused and treated unfairly, and America has turned itself inside out trying to address those injustices and grievances. However, the truth is that addressing those grievances is not what PC is about. PC is about destruction and tyranny.
The leaders and followers of PC want complete and total capitulation. They want Western culture and tradition to go away. Yet none of them are quite sure what will replace it except some ephemeral PC platitudes.
This phantom utopian state considers all humankind to be perfectible – if only there are enough rules, regulations and readjustment to new notions of right and wrong. The problem arises when the standard utopia varies from person to person, just as it did during the French and Russian revolutions. The American Founders gave us incredible concepts, in the basic documents of the Republic, that allow for anyone to believe what he will and for that belief to be allowed free expression. In the world of PC, communism, and fascism, the only "freedom" left is the decision to submit to the tyrannical state or die.
The great jurist Robert Bork defined what is happening in America very well: "… our culture is now politicized … our politics [are] culturized … the idea that everything is ultimately political has taken hold. … [I]t is [about] the oppression of women, Western imperialism, colonialism, and racism. Political correctness now assaults one's opponent as not merely wrong but morally evil."
PC is rampant even in the high culture of America. The Smithsonian Institution is not immune. At an exhibit in the 1990s that featured the American Frontier from 1820-1920, the Smithsonian's historians mutilated historical interpretation so badly that historian and former librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin wrote: "A perverse, historically inaccurate, destructive exhibit. No credit to the Smithsonian."
Political correctness is neither objective nor inclusive nor fair. It condemns the brilliant and too often lauds the mediocre, inane and barbaric. Political correctness, in its demonization and vilification of traditional Western culture and philosophy, creates the eventual conditions for its own demise. Yet it does not recognize this as it glorifies non-Western cultures and conditions while totally ignoring their barbarisms.
The problem with PC is that what it seeks to replace Western traditional or classic culture with will not be egalitarian, fair or inclusive. What will fill the vacuum is a chaotic blend of banality, half-truths and political philosophy, based on primitive notions of good and evil, fair and unfair, justice and truth.
PC is more tribal and separatist than anything currently going on in the Aryan Nations, militia groups, skinhead cults and odd but still free associations of people in the United States and the world today. It will continue to do vast harm to the United States, which has been by far the most fair and inclusive civilization in the history of humankind.
If PC achieves final victory, American social, intellectual, spiritual and political life will become more tyrannical and diabolical than any yet invented by the dark side of human nature." - The Old Totalinarianism vs. the New Decietful Kind" by Diane Alden
And that sums up what we are fighting, and it is for the soul of this nation.
DUs will do what DUs do. Almost half the country voted for a traitor and this kind of PC garbage. Nothing I say or do will stop them from attempting to destroy this country and everything that the right holds dear. Rush can rant about how the Dims are on the run and about to implode but don't you believe it. These parasites are soooo deep in the system that they will never be gotten rid of.
Oops, a typo! They meant "while the school is under REconstruction". Maybe the new mural will have a few rappers and some of those really nice sports players and throw in a few terrorists, to make sure we don't leave anyone out.
i wonder if anyone in this student body has ever read george orwells `984 and if the see any similarities at all in that book and this schools actions?
There was an advertisement last week, maybe on the history channel, about the "civil" war, and not one battle flag was shown throught the advertisement, although the union flag was shown several times. It's already being removed.
This sounds to me like they removed the Cross of St. Andrew from the Mural! In their ignorance they removed a symbol they obviously know little or nothing about, all the while thinking that they were removing the Confederate Battle Flag! Instead of these lazy educators teaching the truth, they make life easy on themselves and erase a piece of our history people need to know more about.
I've got a better idea for removing the offending presence.
Raze the school. Sell the land. Let their kids finish their educations at the state "school" in Joliet.
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