???
At the risk of sounding repetative.
You Americans were fighting each other
We British were fighting Germans, Germany is not part of the UK.
This is what my cousin and I argue about. His family immigrated to South Carolina, but he was actually born in Spain (en route to America). Except for that first 4-6 months when his parents were living with relatives, he’s been in South Carolina all his life. While he adamantly states that in no way but a handful of Southerners are redneck, bigoted racist pricks, in the same breath, he continues to say that the CF is a symbol of racist attitude.
My debate with him and in general is this: Is there no way for people to change the meaning of a symbol? When can Hindus and Buddhists reclaim its swastika? What if a movement started in India, contained in the East, where they effectively reclaim (however that is determined, just assume that it is) that symbol, and then started moving here banding about it in the West? What if other non-Asians started to follow it as well? Can’t that movement start here in the states, the land of the free?
Ultimately, what I argue about with my cousin is that while he claims he is so liberal as to be a functional communist (don’t ask, it doesn’t make sense), he thinks it’s ok to suppress speech if it is something that he doesn’t agree with, in some unknown interest of fairness.
Hey calm down and quit with the insults, facile indeed :mad:
I’ll be the first to admit that my knowledge of the American Civil War is limited.
When all’s said and done all I came into this thread to say was that I didn’t understand why you guys still get all steamed up about a bloody flag that represented a cause fought 150 years ago.
Consider me outta this now.
Yes, I understand that part, thanks. What I’m asking is why should people react differently to a symbol from a civil war, versus one used in a foreign war.
But every time you make this point, you are simply begging the question.
Why does the fact that one dispute was between nations, and one dispute was between sections of a nation, change the impact of a flag’s symbolism?
Why is it that the simple fact of American reunification somehow nullifies, in your mind, the symbolic significance of that flag in American culture, but not that of the Nazi flag in the UK?
On preview: beaten to the punch my Miller.
That’s because you have been willfully ignoring the fact that the flag has much more recent political connotations, something which has repeatedly been pointed out in this thread. It does not merely “represent a cause fought 150 years ago.”
Only after the majority of people no longer associate with Nazism. I don’t believe that it makes any sense to “push” understanding of a symbol in order to rehabilitate it.
Case-specific factors must be taken into account, such as:
(1) The Nazi swastika symbol is far more notorious than the Confederate flag. That makes it less likely that the swastika is going to lose its negative connotations very soon.
On the other hand:
(2) Nazism was not a Hindu or Indian movement, so it might be easier for Hindus or Indians to use the symbol without being suspected of Nazism. In contrast, the Confederate flag’s negative connotations arose from its use by white Southerners. It’s less likely that white Southerners will be able to convince people that they mean something else by it.
In either case, I don’t think larger society “owes” either group the opportunity to rehabilitate the symbol in question.
Yes I have :smack: and for that I apologise.
I still think the CSA flag is quite pretty tho’
Show me how it’s not facile.
And you seem to still ignore the fact that I explained to you that “cause” in question did not end 150 years ago.
No kidding. Thanks for the pointer. I just assumed registration was on a fee basis, like JSTOR or something.
See post 68
That’s just it, Southern Pride prevents forgetting the failed [del]revolution[/del] [del]rebellion[/del] pathetic attempt to further racist ignorance, and somehow is used to justify displaying a symbol on par, if not worse, than the Nazi swastika.
Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if the Union had split. The South is not the money sink it used to be, but the trend is still in that direction. Cite.
Probably a lot differently than if there had been a popular television series in the early 80’s where the main characters, also known as “good ol’ boys” with “fundamentally good natures” had a Nazi flag painted on the roof of their car.
I can’t believe the comparison has even been made in this thread. Maybe others are different, but when I see The General Lee, I think of 1970’s era muscle cars, and Daisy Duke. Any of the connotations that may or may not be associated with the Confederate battle flag are not even fathomable when thinking of the '69 Charger.
Okay, Chowder, then let’s deal with the Nazi thing.
People have negative reactions to Nazi symbols because of Nazi philosophy and actions, not merely because they were foreigners at war. Otherwise, you would get the same reaction flying a Nazi flag as you would an ordinary German flag and any ordinary German person walking around London would get the same reaction as someone dressed in a Nazi uniform. Nazism is reviled not because it is alien, but because it is repugnant in and of itself.
I’m glad when people fly that flag, or wear it on articles of clothing. It points out to me who to avoid.
I’m sure I miss out on the company of a small percentage of misunderstood, honerable, noble people who abhor racism and are commemorating their ancestors. But it also allows me to miss out on the company of a bunch of brain dead racist retards. Balance works in my favor on that one, I think.
The oddest part of it is that I saw the flag WAY more when I lived in central Pennsylvania (Carlisle, north of Gettysburg) than I ever did living in Nashville, Charlotte, or now NoVA.
Why is it unbelievable? The question was “how is it possible people can object to a flag?” I never said the Confederate flag is identical to the Nazi flag. But the example of the Nazi flag is clear to most people as an example of a flag that is objectionable.
Here’s the wiki on the swastika for those trying to equate the Nazi with the Hindu version.
I think people have generally agreed with that. Eg, that the CBF, in context, on said orange Charger, is acceptable.
And just to make all you Charger-lovers happy, have a memento of a recent trip of mine.
(The last three are slightly different.)
For those of you who don’t favor Chargers?
I agree that flying the flag these days is rude, and I would strongly suspect that anyone flying it today might harbor some racist sentiments.
Wasn’t always so, though. In the 70s, the rebel flag was viewed by most as a pretty innocuous symbol of generalized rebellion. (That’s how it wound up on the General Lee in a weekly TV show. That would never happen today.) People wore rebel flag patches on their jeans. Those patches were advertised for sale in children’s comic books, right alongside “Woodstock” patches and the “ecology flag.” Lynyrd Skynyrd used a giant rebel flag as a backdrop for their shows, and nobody thought twice about it. (Though the flag gets digitally removed when clips of old Skynyrd shows are aired these days.) The flag showed up in a dorm room in Animal House (as a generalized emblem of rebellion). Rebel flag bandanas and decals were common.
Our sensibilities have changed. Beginning in the 80s, people started vocalizing objections to the flag. (To be fair, maybe they had those objections all along, but just didn’t air them.) And by now, thirty years later, the very sight of the flag is cringe-inducing.
It can be jarring to see an old movie from the 70s (like Animal House) where the flag was on display in a nonchalant way.
Sorry I was unclear. I didn’t mean the comparison of the Nazi flag to the Confederate flag. I meant the comparison of The General Lee to the Confederate flag.
ETA: I was responding to the part of your post about painting the flag on the roof of your car. If it was some random car, that would be lame. But if it was a 1969 or 1970 Charger that was painted in Big Bad Orange with large block “01” on the side, I don’t think the comparison has any validity.