Apparently this Confederate flag business is like whack-a-mole: when you get someone to pull it down, it goes back up somewhere else. In this case, it’s Florida:
A county board in Florida has voted unanimously to make sure the Confederate flag continues flying atop a public site honoring deceased police officers,WKMG reports. According to the local news outlet, members of the Marion County Board of County Commissioners voted on Tuesday to re-raise a Confederate flag over the Fallen Officers Memorial in Ocala. The site of remembrance, which commemorates officers who died while performing official law enforcement duties, sits on land paid for by taxpayers, just outside the Marion County administration building on Southeast 25th street.
Thanks, Florida. As if Stand Your Ground laws didn’t give us enough reason to have beef with you.
Team Blackness also discussed Bill Cosby and how his moral grandstanding is leading to his undoing, the FBI raid on Subway spokesman Jared Fogle, and some ridiculous drivel out of Dr. Boyce Watkins.
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shell
Were these officers serving under General Lee. Otherwise I dont get the connection.
JPL
The Post and Courier news reporter is covering the debate on the South Carolina battle flag here, https://twitter.com/CynthiaRoldan
Villago Delenda Est
It’s Cleek’s Law in action.
Patricia Kayden
Why would the swastika rag be relevant to fallen police officers? I don’t get it. Plus, wouldn’t some of those officers be Black? I have African American friends who live in Ocala who must be appalled by this. They need to vote out the entire County board.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@shell:
@Patricia Kayden:
I third this sentiment. WTF does the flag of treason have to do with police officers killed in the line of duty? Why not just put up the flag of Spain since Florida was once owned by Spain? It makes as much sense.
Punchy
Good lord, shit’s a complete mess in Maine….
MomSense
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I fourth the WTF. How does the loser flag have anything to do with fallen officers?
Ok, I’ll save more comments until I listen to the podcast.
KG
Paging General Sherman… General William Sherman, please pick up the white curtesy phone, your services a requested in the South Eastern United States, again
MomSense
@Punchy:
Now you understand why I am killing myself to sell my house, find a job, and move out of state. This is the most pathetic spectacle I have ever seen and it would be totally mockworthy except that our economy is so terrible that I don’t see a future here.
aimai
If we ever retake the House the very first bill I want Nancy Pelosi to submit is a bill that links all federal aid to a person or institution to the flying of the Confederate flag (s). Any person receiving a federal salary or working in a federal institution should not be permitted to display or fly the Confederate flags where they might display or fly the US flag (in their office or on the grounds of federally funded buildings). Museums and private property would be excepted. But no federal funds for the rehabilitation of confederate statues or flags.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
The local newspaper says Spain’s flag does fly at the same memorial — as well as the US, British and French flags, commemorating all of the countries that owned Florida at various times. I don’t know what any of that has to do with memorializing cops, though.
Patricia Kayden
@aimai: If only Dems would have the spine to do such a thing. Good idea though. I’m glad to be in Maryland where to my knowledge, the Confederate rag isn’t flying over any public buildings. We do have a statue of the pro-slavery Supreme Court Judge Taney in Annapolis, however, and some are calling for its removal from government property.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@efgoldman:
We have Cars Land and Florida doesn’t, so that’s an advantage. Plus we have lots of non-Disney stuff to do in the area. It shouldn’t be that hard of a sell.
Another Holocene Human
@Patricia Kayden: There are definitely changes occurring in Ocala. I wish any challengers to the incumbents well.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): The Spanish king was a Cath-O-Lick. So were many of the settlers he invited to la Florida. Don’t want to remember that when by the early 20th century they were lynching Catholic priests. (True story and it is gross.)
Another Holocene Human
@Punchy: Every dipshit that voted LePage for racism and resentment (which would be everyone who voted for LePage) shares the blame, today.
aimai
@Patricia Kayden: I think the next round of Dems would. Because increasingly, once its clear that the Presidency doesn’t require southern redneck votes, there’s going to be no reason not to piss them off. And, damn, I’m sick of these goobers putting their flag of treason all up in our faces. I’m not the most patriotic person ever but if I’m going to be forced to salute a flag, or respect one, its going to be of my own damned country and not the fucking confederacy.
Another Holocene Human
@Betty Cracker: The Florida flag itself is a diagonal cross with an itsy-bitsy florida seal in the middle. On state trooper vehicles, all you can see is that cross.
Like that’s not supposed to recall the Confederate Battle Flag.
boatboy_srq
@Punchy: @MomSense: Maine was always a great state to be from. Especially true now that LePage is in Augusta (I still can’t decide if not enough folks voted for somebody else, or just that Waterville didn’t want him anymore). Ask me about Sheriff Dutremble sometime: real piece’o’work.
@MomSense: Fifth’d. South Georgia (as Floridians refer to most parts north of Orlando) is it’s own special level of hell, but this is really pushing it. Neoconfederatism there is part wishing for the good old days (when men were white and women and Those People were property) and part twenty-first century cargo cult. This recent action smacks of the cargo-cult element.
boatboy_srq
@efgoldman: Well, there’s always Paris… Seriously though, these days Disney (OK OK Lake Buena Vista / Orlando), Charleston, Nawlins and other attractions seem about as Yankee-tourist-friendly as Aleppo or Palmyra.
zoot
if continued unmitigated climate change has a silver lining, its that we’ll soon be rid of Florida.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Betty Cracker:
So they have police officers from the Spanish colonial days memorialized there? Did they even have police officers back then? Still so very confused about the connection, which I assume is the point.
CONGRATULATIONS!
I like Florida, more or less, but Stand Your Ground has put it on my “visit under no circumstances” list until that law’s repealed, for the same reason I don’t take the family to Juarez, Mexico. I’m responsible for my family’s safety. Florida is unwilling to take even the basic steps to insure that people in their state are safe. So no more trips to Panama City.
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human: My favorite t-shirt has the Florida state flag on it…in the shape of a pig:
Florida swine!
wuzzat
@Patricia Kayden: Sadly, unless Ocala has undergone some kind of miraculous transformation over the last 10 years, I’m sure your friends see this as par for the course.
Arclite
Will no one think of the
childrenConfederates!Bostondreams
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
It’s intended to display all of the flags that have flown over Marion County. French, Spanish, US, British, and Confederate. It’s a historical display separate from the officers memorial. And they aren’t flying the battle flag, but the Confederate national flag, for it’s worth. This display has been around for awhile.
joel hanes
This calls for a high-power aim-able laser.
Burn that fucker as it flies.
Do it in daylight and no one need even notice.
Better yet, periodically make it just hot enough that the fabric goes to hell in a couple days.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Bostondreams:
“Awhile” being how long? I ask because it seems like the majority of Confederate flags displayed by Southern state governments just happened to be put up around the time of the Civil Rights Movement getting into full swing (South Carolina’s was put up in1961).
If it’s not the battle flag, and it’s part of a larger display of other flags, and it’s a separate memorial, it might be justifiable, but I think there should have been a lot more public discussion and input first.
Jack the Second
To be fair, I’m sure a number of the fallen officers were upholding the principles and beliefs of the Confederacy.
Same goes for the state governments flying the flag, of course.
Bostondreams
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
The display went up in 1995, I believe. It is the national flag, not the battle flag, and fits with the 4 others in that sense.
demz taters
Where’s Bugs Bunny when you need him?
Betty Cracker
@Bostondreams: I believe Pensacola has something similar — or did at one time — and maybe Tallahassee too. Florida is kind of unusual in that it changed hands so many times. It’s like a hot potato — no one wanted to be stuck with the damn place!
Kass
Why is anybody surprised?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Bostondreams:
YMMV, but including the Confederate States of America as an independent country whose flag flew over Florida seems a little odd. One of these things is not like the other.
Of course, my state’s flag calls us a republic, so who knows?