Here’s Mollie Hemingway making an interesting comparison regarding the removal of the Confederate flag from public squares:
Basically it’s just such a hysterical atmosphere at this point, that no one can conceive of a person who is against something but also willing to tolerate the expression of that thing. Can we be against Jeff Davis — and also against destroying art and monuments and history just because they involve Jeff Davis?
Symbols are tremendously important, and state sponsorship of symbols is very much worth fighting about. But there are ways to express disapproval of art, monuments and aspects of history without taking the approach of, say, blowing up the Buddhas, to take one recent example.
As they say in the south, “Bless her heart.”
Bonus points for making the rebel case at a rag titled “The Federalist.”
Corner Stone
VRA! VRA! VRA!
Trentrunner
I’m quite confident that there will be more than enough confederate flags displayed on private property.
Omnes Omnibus
The US toppled the fuck out some Saddam statues not too far back. I wonder how she felt about that at the time.
lamh36
lamh36
BTW Cole, how did you have a good birthday? I’m assuming since no post bout you tripping on a shoelace and breaking your coccyx or collarbone, that you must be ok and did not succumb to one of your bad luck accidents?
Corner Stone
I actually think the racist Roof may get some small part of his desire. If not a full on race war, it’s conceivable to me that we will see a wave of white resentment like we haven’t seen since Reagan or maybe the ’60s.
This all seems to be crashing to a head on some small symbols that may give fury to the kinds of shitheels that really want to do harm.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Great news.
Tree With Water
Years ago I went completely nuts studying the Civil War. Dived in, and didn’t come up for years. There are elements and reactions playing out in the aftermath of the horror at Charleston that I frankly find fascinating. I even dare hope that great and powerful good may yet come of it..
RSA
Whitesplaining is so helpful sometimes. Because the title of the article ends with “Now What?” I checked her last few pieces, hoping to find what she proposes to do about racism. Hmm, something seems to be missing…
piratedan
she’s no Molly Ivins
SiubhanDuinne
So I guess it’ll be a while before they sandblast Robert E. Lee off the side of Stone Mountain.
Corner Stone
@Tree With Water:
Sounds fascinating. Could you possibly take some time and give us a synopsis of what you learned from your deep dive? Maybe 18 months or so of introspection might do it.
JGabriel
Mollie Hemingway:
Gosh, I never thought of it like that (probably because I have a functioning moral sense). But Mollie’s right: removing monuments to people who committed treason and went to war a century and a half ago for the heinous goal of preserving chattel slavery is just like blowing up millenia old religious symbols of peace, contemplation, and enlightenment.
Or, you know, maybe not?
Mike in NC
@Corner Stone: How much white resentment haven’t we had for the past six years?
Chris
I’ve never understood why the Republican lawyer frat calls itself “the Federalist Society.” They were the BIG government party, and rooted in the Northeast to boot. Is it just because it sounds Founding Fathery?
Corner Stone
Ok, so we’re 15+ minutes into TRMS. I think we whiteys have got the gist of this.
JGabriel
@Corner Stone:
Or maybe like since that time we elected a black president?
raven
@Corner Stone: And she’s wrong about Deal.
NotMax
Brought up from below:
Hmmm.
Anyone seen any pushback recently against the Stone Mountain monument? It is on land owned by the state of Georgia, after all.
@SiubhanDuinne
Dang, you’re quick. And prescient, to boot. :)
jl
@RSA: And ignorant, deluded ‘whitesplaining’ at that. I’m seeing more and more news articles that give the history of the battle flag of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia as a historic symbol of Southern Heritage. It is not. I was introduced and promoted as such in the 20th century to protest federal efforts to end racial discrimination and denial of voting rights in the South.
A lot of these people do not seem to realize that the forces that promote racial wedge issues do not really believe in that stuff. The leaders believe in power and money. And power and especially corporate money seem to be saying that certain political racial wedge tools are becoming noxious to a growing majority of the population. So, out they go, and that is just too bad for the true believers.
Fix racism, and then maybe we can talk about an honest appraisal of history and role various symbols and memorials should play in national memory.
I think, hope, that for most people around the country, and I hope most whites, the notion of removing Confederate battle flag (that it turns out is not really a long standing symbol of Southern Heritage at all) from government buildings and grounds will lead to tearing down every Civil War monument that mentions that Confederacy is crazy.
But, hey, if they (edit: and we, all over the country) don’t start fixing the racism, then some other symbol will be hijacked and polluted too, or racists and manipulators will manufacture a fake, and then there will be controversy about that too.
So, yeah, we need to get on ‘What’s Next’ I’m looking forward to her thoughts on that.
Chris
@JGabriel:
Also, it’s not just the flag, it’s the flag being on government turf. Private citizens can endorse whatever the fuck they want, but when the government endorses an insurgency, it’s like, WTF?!
Corner Stone
@Mike in NC: Yeah, but that black guy was just fucking offensive being in our White House. We couldn’t fucking take that god damn bullshit but it was just there for right now, ya’know?
Now, however, the forces of darkness, mongrelization, the other, are all coming after my family! My history, honor, tradition! The shit I believe every freakin’ morning I get out of bed to go check my still or meth lab!
I won’t fucking allow it!
NotMax
There’s no comparison. Who aside from Ms. Hemingway is advocating physical destruction?
Corner Stone
@JGabriel: Answered below. The usurper is temporary transgression against our blood and good name.
But if you take away my pride, my heritage, my family history and honor then, suh, that will.not.stand.
ETA, Ok, answered above. Sheesh.
Linnaeus
Hm. Wingnut welfare really does have a low bar.
WereBear
Why, look at all those villages in Eastern Europe who have a statue of Genghis Khan in the square!
/snark
lamh36
Can’t lie, my reaction to the following:
i.imgur.com/jlHvo7A.gif
Corner Stone
I really don’t care who knows it – I love the modern classic film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
James E Powell
@Corner Stone:
I doubt that taking their flag off of government buildings will have any effect on the Neo-Confederates, their beliefs, or their voting behavior. It fits in so well with their narrative of Perpetual Persecution of White Males that is the core tenet of the FOX worldview.
It’s not about the Neo-Confederates. No good is ever going to come from them anyway.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Add Tennessee to the list.
Botsplainer
My dad is a compulsive antique collector, a hobby which angers me.
In childhood, he hung an oil painting of Robert E Lee in my bedroom, wearing Confederate colors. Always hated it. When I inherit it, I’m burning it.
Corner Stone
Myrlie Evers should be played by CCH Pounder in any future movie.
raven
This is really interesting
Go Tell It on the Mountain
The last time he hiked to the top of Stone Mountain before embarking on a new life in South America, longtime Atlanta writer and novelist Charles McNair saw a ghost, had a dream and found a new, pure heart in the old mountain.
I was at a conference at Stone Mountain last year and I climbed it to see the sunrise. They diversity of the people climbing it and exercising on the trails was incredible.
NotMax
Repeating.
So Lindsey Graham bent to the political winds about the capitol display. But just heard him saying he flies that same flag at his own house. Did not hear him say he intends to stop that practice himself.
“Do as I say today, not as I do every day” makes for a really crappy campaign slogan.
Corner Stone
@James E Powell:
I think it may end up being like a magnifying glass in the sun. There is the possibility. These guys don’t live in the actual real world.
JGabriel
@Corner Stone:
That movie is the subject of one of my all-time favorite idiotic NYT headlines:
Aside From the Vampires, Lincoln Film Seeks Accuracy
Corner Stone
@NotMax:
IMO, I think you misheard him. He was talking about people who say certain things. I do not think he has it in his house. It was an awkward segue but I think he was speaking of third parties.
JPL
@raven: Rachel was wrong about the history of the flag, also.
Corner Stone
Myrlie Evers is going fucking all the way there tonight on TRMS!
NotMax
@Corner Stone
“I fly it at my house” is pretty darned impossible to misinterpret.
Steve from Antioch
Removing the flag isn’t enough! We shouldn’t even use those words. Hereafter all right-minded folks should refer to it as the “CF word”.
JPL
@Steve from Antioch: Actually that’s pretty funny. Maybe the tv stations should bleep out the words.
dmsilev
@Steve from Antioch: What, you don’t like ‘The Confederacy of Treason In Defense Of Slavery”?
raven
Try not to engage this asshole. . . please.
shit, too slow
NotMax
@Steve from Antioch
If the warranty is still valid on your snark generator, would return it ASAP as being defective.
JPL
@NotMax: Last Friday, I thought he said he didn’t own the symbol.
I think Lindsay is flipping and flopping so hard, he’s not sure what he thinks anymore.
lamh36
Ok, this is just ri-donk-alous. The “speed” at which this shit is moving, tells me that alot of these companies and organizations are using this to get the Confed flag controversies off their backs for good. I suspect even if not high profile, companies are just tire of the bullshit that flag brings their way..
Corner Stone
@NotMax: You misunderstood him.
Debbie
@Trentrunner:
I heard earlier tonight that sales of the flag had increased over the past week.
NotMax
@lamh36
Whoops. One other thing that institution has been working to remove is being referred to as “Ole Miss.”
GregB
I can’t recall any conservatives or rightwingers expressing shock at the cultural genocide in Iraq when the Saddam statue was torn down?
NotMax
@Debbie
Repeated from an earlier thread:
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
I haven’t been to SM in, probably, 20 years, but my recollection is that they sold a metric shitload of Confederate Battle Flag merchandise in their store. I might be misremembering, and for sure I’m not going back to verify.
I have friends who live in the town of Stone Mountain and can see the dome from their houses (not unlike Sarah Palin and Russia). I have many additional friends who regularly climb Stone Mountain, or who go to sunrise religious services there on Easter Sunday.
It is geologically very cool, but the few times in my life I’ve actually been there, I’ve always felt very uncomfortable.
gf120581
@Debbie: Last rush before it becomes unavailable. Reminds me of those mad runs at the liquor stores on the eve of Prohibition.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Ivy is relatively cheap. Kudzu even more so.
Just sayin’.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: We hiked up a few times but never stayed to view the front.
gf120581
@lamh36: It’s very similar to what happened in Indiana with Pence and the “religious freedom” B.S. he was peddling. Once the corporations and business community weighed in and made their displeasure known, he caved and caved quickly. We’re getting a lot of the same here, I think. Nikki Haley said before that she never had a CEO ask her about the flag before. I think that’s changed in the last few days.
As has been proven time and time again, corporations don’t like anything that stinks of racism or bigotry. It’s bad for business. And while the GOP may pander to bigots, in the end, money always wins out.
lamh36
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
At last, a positive use for kudzu!
I am tempted to order bumper stickers, and maybe set up a website, saying something like COVER THE MOUNTAIN WITH KUDZU or KUDZU ROBERT E. LEE or similar.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
It’s really kind of amazing. It’s as though all these institutions have just been waiting (for years, decades even) for the tipping point moment or critical mass to go ahead and do the right thing.
Jane2
She’s still free to fly the thing, drape herself in it, draw hearts with MH + JD…whatever. It’ll make it easy to identify her for what she is and avoid.
srv
Tolerance will not be tolerated.
Corner Stone
@SiubhanDuinne:
Like when hostages have been held, or small children assaulted in some *cough* institution. A kind of collective amnesia.
Tree With Water
@Corner Stone: It seems knowledge bothers you, which is both strange and sad.
Steve from Antioch
@JPL:
And pixellate the image anytime it’s shown. I mean, c’mon, middle fingers get pixellated but not the CF ???
jl
@gf120581: Like bump in gun sales right after a Democrat, and especially Obama, wins presidential election recently. True gun nuts are a small minority, but they stock up in preparation for the cataclysm (that it turns out never arrives). Most people won’t like seeing an offensive symbol at a store or website, and once a few corporations decide to drop it, every single major competitor feels that they have to drop it too.
But, true believers will stock up.
Corner Stone
@Tree With Water: On the contrary, good Tree. I am explicitly asking you to detail what, if anything, you learned from that minor obsession.
I don’t know how long it may take to offer value from your research but I, for one, want to hear all about it.
Joel
Doesn’t this qualify as nutpicking?
Gvg
Ole Miss has been trying to dump the confederate association for awhile. dumped their mascot the rebel general awhile back and went without while they tried to decide on a new one. they actually said it was holding back their academic reputation and they couldn’t recruit because of it, both athletes and professors.
I haven’t actually gotten around to posting it but I would be delighted to blow up a bunch of monuments and burn a bunch of flags. I am a white southerner and I HATE that symbol. I hate all the times I have had to be polite to some bigot with that symbol and lately worry about fear one might shoot me if I said anything. I have a bunch of pent up anger and am totally ready to have a big party and smash a bunch if things that should never have been on public land. can’t imagine what black citizens feel but it’s likely some people have said enough to get the bigots worried. I am normally rather prim and law abiding. if I feel this way…..riots are possible.
El Caganer
I wonder if any of the wingnuts will go completely in the opposite direction and do something totally berserk, like that Lithuanian dude who created Stalinworld. The Nathan Bedford Fun-TIme Forrest or some shit.
Debbie
@gf120581:
Cracker speculation probably, but what will they do if EBay bans their sale?
gf120581
@Debbie: They revive the Pony Express only for the purpose of smuggling Confederate flags by nightfall?
They can even do the Rebel Yell while doing delivery runs. You know, for heritage purposes. ;)
Tehanu
The disingenuousness of these people never ceases to amaze me. Well, really, everything about them amazes me, including the fact that they look like human beings instead of the soulless moral warthogs they are.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tehanu: What have soulless moral warthogs ever done to deserve that comparison?
NotMax
@gf120581
Bonus: child labor!
:P
Tree With Water
Here’s an interesting Civil War link courtesy of the Manchester Guardian: theguardian.com/us
Update: Sorry, that link is to the paper’s front page. Somewhere therein is a very cool photo montage of Civil War places then and now.
craigie
The comments under that essay are pretty amazing, but this might be the bell-clanging winner:
Where to begin…
LWA (Liberal With Attitude)
I find it funny that when a rightwinger searches his mind for some Krazy Librul thing to use as troll fodder, the wildest, Krayziest idea is that the flag of treason and terror should be treated like the word “fuck”, i.e. pixelated and bleeped.
Its of a piece with the way some of them will feign propriety by allowing that it is “bad manners” or like Erick Erickson, that it is un-Christian, like we were talking about using the word “fuck” instead of “intercourse” or something.
The idea that the Confederacy was, in the most literal way possible, treason by traitors who hated the basic concept of America, escapes those who want to let it escape.
Fuck.
KS in MA
@James E Powell:
But it may be possible to erode the neoconfederates’ support among people who are not (or not quite) extremists themselves. Kind of like anti-bullying programs in schools–move the bystanders out of bystander mode. That has begun to happen during the past week. It’s only a beginning, but it IS a beginning.
Flukebucket
@SiubhanDuinne:
I would love to see them carve an image of Obama looking down on those riders and grinning that million dollar grin that he has.
Cckids
@Debbie:
Ebay did ban it, as of today. Confederate flags are now on the prohibited list.
dww44
@Tree With Water: I share your hopeful take on the current situation. Gov. Haley has unleashed something that perhaps she didn’t expect, but kudos to her anyways.
In reality, though, any progress in the dismantling of hateful symbols will happen because of the unassailable goodness and innocence of those African American victims.
PhilbertDesanex
Crap. I have long wanted some Stars ‘n’ Bars to burn on the Fourth. But certainly don’t want top pay China for them. Well, unless firecracker. Guess I’ll have to print my own.
John Cole
@lamh36: It was laid back. First one sober since probably turning 21 in the desert in Kuwait.
moderateindy
@LWA (Liberal With Attitude):
Exactly. White conservative southerners are always blathering about how patriotic they are, and how much evil libruls hate their country. Yet at the same time they worship a flag that personifies trying to destroy that very country. Of course don’t try to confuse them with logic, thinking hurts.
By the way the “confederate flag” wasn’t particularly popular until it was adopted as a symbol of white supremacy during the backlash against the civil rights movement. But, you know, heritage. Of course, these same maroons call the civil war, the war of Northern aggression, cause you remember how the north seceeded, and then fired on Fort Sumter.
Lurking Canadian
@Chris: in case you are still reading, your hardcore libertarian believes the Federalist Papers are actually a blueprint for the night watchman state that Jesus, acting through his prophet Madison, decreed for the United States before the statist coup. Just when the statist coup happened is not universally agreed, although many point to the election of 1860, which brigs things back around to the topic of the thread.
Paul in KY
Who the fuck is Mollie Hemingway?!
Paul in KY
@SiubhanDuinne: Maybe some day the sculptures can be modified into Gen. Sherman & Gen. Thomas?
Paul in KY
@John Cole: Happy birthday, John.
Matt McIrvin
@Corner Stone: I occasionally think, “You know, the race war those people keep talking about is really going to happen, because fool racist white people are going to start it.”
And then I realize that that’s a stupid statement because the race war on that level started about 300 years ago and has been going on ever since.
Matt McIrvin
@dww44: We’ll have had real progress when an atrocity against African-Americans is considered a bad thing even when they’re just ordinary people who are possibly kind of jerks sometimes.
J R in WV
@craigie:
‘Cause just so many innocent and unarmed white folks die in a hailstorm of bullets from gangs of black law officers!!!
I can’t watch a football game for all the news alerts about dead white folk at the hands of the black state police!! Why, it’s so bad nowadays we should all get bulletproof vests free when we register to vote!
Racists are so stupid, I can’t tell whether their madness or their stupidity is worse.