Jeebus cripes! This country - at least sections of it - gets more fucking nuts by the minute. Now, as Chris Hayes noted last night, the proto-Confederates (who still haven't admitted they've lost the Civil War) are trying to make out that the retraction of Confederate flags in many public spaces (as in AL) is akin to a "Southern genocide". Are you kidding me?
Seriously? And citing Rush 'the pig' Limbaugh as saying opponents will go after the U.S. flag next? These people have totally lost their fucking bearings! Let me assure these nattering nabobs there is no chance of that happening at all. Not one! No one will make kids stop singing 'Dixie' or prevent people from naming pet dogs 'Lil Reb'. If proof is needed, the worry warts need to get hold of Joshua Zeitz' seminal article Dixie's Victory(American Heritage, Sept. 2002) . He shows how Southern culture and worship has become so entrenched in many parts of the U.S. - from NASCAR racing to bible meets it will be impossible to ever restrain or dilute.
So people in an uproar need to cool their pants off, get a grip, and find their mental bearings . Also, cease talking or writing about "attacks" or "wars" as a response to what's going on now - which remains purely in the symbolic realm. (As one guest on Hayes' All In noted last night - quite correctly- the real changes are when all the absurd voting ID laws are repealed!)
Yet with the proposals to ban the Confederate flag gaining momentum across the South in the wake of the Charleston massacre, we see the Reb-backing Southerners going ape shit nuts. Such as one character, a member of the extremist group Sons of Confederate Veterans. He was featured multiple times last night - almost jumping out of his seat as he faced a black MSNBC interviewer- and screaming: "This flag din't kill no one!" Uh, no Roscoe, we never said it did. What we said - if you had even a 5th grade education and could understand - is that it was used as an ideological prop for killings. It was used as such - as Chris noted - by one former Confederate general who later became head of the KKK and lynched his way to fame - using the necks of blacks! In the same way, it was used by that turd Dylann Roof as a prop for his crimes, never mind he didn't actually wear the Reb flag when he killed those nine - he had it plastered all over on his damned website.
Thankfully, officials at the Southern Poverty Law Center are warning that white supremacists are trying to exploit any backlash as a recruitment tool. They say fringe groups are framing the removal of the flag as "cultural genocide" or "Southern genocide" which is total bollocks. How or why would anyone in their wildest phantasms - whether "libos", "libtards" or "Jewish commies"- try to wipe out a whole section of the nation? We wouldn't! Get them to secede from our sane nation, yeah, well, maybe! If they want to have their own little nutty enclave which still hasn't accepted the past, that's their biz.
Heidi Beirich, Intelligence Project director for the center, noted yesterday:
"There's no question that organized white supremacy right now is using the battle flag as a rallying cry for their views,"
Neo-Confederate and white-pride groups say the flag is a symbol of "Southern heritage" and a memorial to Civil War dead — not a symbol of the racist views of Dylann Roof, the white gunman who killed nine black church members last week. But still it was the flag of traitors and was wielded by Klan members as well as Rebel militia (including Quantrill's Raiders) in assorted depredations so must be considered much like the Nazi swastika. Hence, deserves to be in museums and no where else.
Predictably, since the Southerners are such sore losers, the recent calls to take down the flag from the South Carolina capital and from other government-sponsored locations (as in Alabama and Mississippi) has opponents planning rallies and mulling boycotts. GO for, it, folksies, just try to keep the chaw tobaccy spittle from flying (and hitting innocent bystanders) when you scream.
"I say boycott Walmart or any other business which refuses to sell Confederate Flags, which are simply a part of American and Southern history and heritage,"
Good, go for it, Sparky! I am sure that Sam Walton's multi-billion empire will wince, and curdle when it loses about $4, 300 a year from your bunch!
Meanwhile, a Facebook page run by Defenders of the Confederate Cross has invited hundreds of people to attend a Saturday protest at the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia. The caption bellows:
"Lets make our stand and show overwhelming support to keep the flag were it is or place it back on top of the dome!"
At mid-morning, 42 people had replied that they would attend. Again, just don't get into fights or start heaving spittle at the thousands more who demand taking that stupid flag down, which - btw - is the flag of Northern Virginia, not SC.
The League of the South, which is pushing for secession, is also planning a protest in Columbia this weekend, but it has not announced details. Pat Hines, head of the group's South Carolina chapter, wailed:
"I would like to see several thousand people. Obviously, the politicians are rushing to get the law changed while everyone is excited about the deaths of these people.I don't see the connection. We certainly didn't advocate the murders of random people like that."
Well, you didn't have to "advocate the murders", once you supported and upheld a flag under which banner tens of thousands were raped, whipped, lynched and slaughtered for over a hundred and fifty years. Just as the swastika didn't murder the 6 million Jews - but it was sure attached to the armbands of the slime who did, and flew over the concentration camps where the genocide was carried out.
Michael German, a former FBI agent who infiltrated white supremacist groups during a 16-year career, said the organizations should not be underestimated. And we the sane ought to take him at his word, especially as these domestic terrorists have killed more than twice as many as Muslim radicals in this country since 9/11. As he said:
"White supremacist groups are recruiters so they're constantly going out trying to seek new people, trying to spread their message. And they can do that. They have radio shows, they have internet shows, they have rock bands that tour around the United States. So this is an ideology that has been around for a long time."
Heidi Beirich of the SPLC meanwhile said some defenders of the flag could be riled up enough to get sucked into the white-supremacy culture.
True. Which is sad. But as I said, maybe all this shows that now is the time to let these unapologetic Southerners really secede from the Union - since they obviously can't countenance its laws, provisions and even the Constitution (especially the Preamble and the general welfare clause). If they can't abide by what states and sane governors are doing now - or contend Obama is not legitimately elected - then let them start their own little mini-nation, in the South.
I don't think many other "libos" would object! As long as they keep their violence there!
See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bill-berkowitz/62812/nixing-the-confederate-flag-yes-dealing-with-white-supremacy-not-so-much
and
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-grant/62801/dog-whistlers-run-for-cover-lone-wolf-racist-terror-backfires
So if black people wear malcom x shirts who was a racist and miliant thats ok but white people of southern heritage should forget there roots see how stuid that sounds just because a group uses a object doesn t mean everyone thinks like them or are you so narrow minded that only your veiws are what is right
ReplyDeleteMalcolm X was all about liberating the chains of African American's consciousness, years after their bodies had been shackled in slave chains and they'd been lynched, burned and subjected to decades of Jim Crow in the South. Those 'X' tees were reminders and evocative of that. By contrast, the 'Stars n Bars' is the emblem of Southern Traitors and their rebellion and has nada to do with any racial significance or the white privilege bollocks.
ReplyDeleteAnd if a group like Southern whites "chooses" an object like the rebel flag - or versions of it-- to wear on hats, cars or whatever and they don't grasp thee historical significance than they are the stupid ones, or at least acting stupid