now come to represent states rights and yes racism, because that was a major issue what the Civil War was about

There was an actual Confederate Flag (several of them), and those of us who care about history are interested in them.

"States' Rights" is a BS claim, because the only right they were interested in was the right to be slave states (and when New England started nullifying antislavery legislation they reversed positions immediately).

But, more to the point, the fact that those who waved that flag were white supremacists does not excuse us to be sloppy about the actual flag itself.

Wrong

The Civil War was not about 'state's rights.' it was about maintaining a system of social power (slavery) that was being eroded by expanding northern industrialism. Slave owners in the south were desperate to maintain their social power and wealth which relied on the antiquated system of chattel slavery. It was a system that was not maintainable except by creating a permanent tiered social system. Southern aristocrats have been trying to reintroduce a caste system ever since.

territories. Anyone who reads the Articles of Secession and denies that is either illiterate or dishonest.

Just like the modern "Confederate Flag," saying that the Civil War was about racism is confusing the 1960s with the 1860s. At the time of the Civil War northern Americans were quite openly racist, and though blacks were not in danger of being enslaved in the north they also were most definitely second class citizens.

The war began not over whether slavery should remain legal in the southern states, but whether it should be allowed to expand in to any of the new western states. Northern whites recognized that if slavery were legal then all the farm land in the new states would quickly be swept up by plantation owners and worked by slaves. They also feared that if Southerners started to build many factories and base an industrial economy off slavery that they could undercut the prices of northern factories and potentially put many people out of work.

In other words, the vast majority of white northerners had no moral objection to enslaving blacks and were definitely racist, but they feared what the economic consequences would be if slavery kept expanding.

Another fun little fact is that the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free a single slave. It applied only to those states in revolt, which at the time of proclaiming were not subject to the authority of the President. Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland were allowed to keep holding slaves throughout the war because they did not secede.

Geese this went on longer than I intended...

also against slavery

and the result of the civil war was that it DID free the slaves

The strategy of the anti-slavery forces was to stop the expansion and thus put slavery on a path to gradual extinction.

To slave holding interests in the South, this strategy was perceived as infringing upon their Constitutional rights, and that view was racist, there is no sugar coating it

Pure and simple, northerners cared about the same thing as the southerners: their bottom line. It was apparent that expanding slavery would be bad for northern workers and northern factories. The Confederates paid all sorts of lip service to state's rights, but of course when their back was against the wall they started conscripting men and confiscating property to support the war even if the state/local authorities were against it. In other words, as usual all the moral arguments from both side were weak and/or hypocritical, it was a conflict fought more or less to determine who would direct the national economy.

My point is the Civil War was not declared as a moral crusade against the injustice of slavery, but rather to ensure the economic and political dominance of northern industrialists at the expense of southern cash croppers. Anyone who says or implies that northerners were not on average just as racist as southerners is sugar coating the history IMO.

This is like people who get their undies in a bunch when you say ammo clips instead of magazines! Let the fireworks begin!

doesn't deserve my attention, because to me, the word heritage, especially when modified by the adjective "southern", is dog whistle code for "defense of slavery".

I don't buy any of the bullshit revisionism about the war. Every single seceding state explicitly listed white supremacy as a cause for secession. Every. Single. One.

Still, I'm a nerd. I believe in accuracy. The "confederate flag" as commonly conceived today would not have been recognized 150 years ago.

You'll have to look up every state's articles of secession. I think Florida is the only one that didn't include white supremacy explicitly. But the articles of secession are publicly available. eg

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/mississippi_declaration.asp

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

But, seriously, it's all quite explicitly there.

I just randomly picked a state (VA) and could find no mention of white supremacy.

http://www.virginiamemory.com/docs/04-17-1861_trans_ck.pdf

They are talking about slavery as an economic institution. Please tell me what leader, north or south, who was not a white supremacist at the time. Lincoln certainly was.

slaves and their contribution to the development of agriculture in the South, esp. at the monument of Fort Sumter. AND their description of the slave/plantation owners for the clueless class they were. They were factual and honest as far as I could tell in their description of what happened, but of course it IS a national monument now.

Interesting history...I'm sure it wasn't always that way...

Yet here ya are.

Just repeating the OP.

Take it up with him if you have a problem.

Former coworker. We had common interests in many subjects and could BS for hours, and was generally a good sort. Got along great even though I was born and bred in the northeast and he in the south.

The one wedge issue was the whole confederacy/heritage thing. Really flushed him out as a chauvanistic and provincial douchebag. Got a few beers in him and suddenly the only "real americans" are anglo/irish/scotch origin people born and raised in the south. Bitter as hell over the ciovil war. WTF??

They just can't let it go, can they.

It has stars. It has bars. The battle flag doesn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America

And see which one they describe. They're that much more wrong for that.

If some people were going around "playing Nazis" and had, say, messed up the lines of the swastika, I'd have no interest in correcting them. It would almost be kind of satisfying, like the ridiculous misspelled signs you sometimes see at tea party rallies. If someone wants to display a flag that represents white supremacy, I say, let them screw it up as much as they want. I'm not interested in helping them glorify their past.

BTW, since you're a stickler for accuracy, I have a little trouble squaring two of your posts:

Post #4: "Every single seceding state explicitly listed white supremacy as a cause for secession. Every. Single. One. "

Post #11: "I think Florida is the only one that didn't include white supremacy explicitly."

Neither belongs in America or anywhere else, symbols are important.

I'm a vexillology nerd. I don't like other flags standing in for it.

But my cerebral point is 100% factually correct.

Why do historical reenactment of a civil war that ended the evil of slavery....why none for the world war that erased the evil of fascism and despotism?

I think both may be mistakes.

Literally. Re-enactment usually only starts after all the veterans of a conflict are dead. Give it 10 years, and it will start.

It's funny you mentioned it, because one of the first WWI re-enactment units I've heard of is starting up now, near Bruges. Pretty much just after the last veteran of it died (I hear about this from an historical fiction listserve I'm on). Still, the Western Front in WWI was much much more barbaric than any fighting in WWII.

in America are reenacting horrors of the past considered fun to do.

http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v= fMAHifZ3YR4

American I think. No other reenactment group even comes close (even the Revolutionary War). You google war reenactment and almost everyone is for Civil War. You won't see the Mexican War, Spanish War, or World War I anywhere near as popular even though the last of the World War I veterans have been dead nearly ten years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_reenactment_groups


What is shocking is that there are Vietnam and later war reenactments. I can't even imagine it.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/reliving-vietnam-war-woods-oregon/

It's not about who owns America's history.

- but if it were, a more accurate summation would be "America's history belongs to all humans, not just nationalistic American white male conservatives from a military family".

Sure beats some self selected academic telling me what I should think about our history. My only point.

devote their lives to its study and preservation than academics?

I trust them with the preservation of history far more than folks playing with history as a summer weekend hobby.

Something to do with scientific peer review.

Last edited Mon Sep 29, 2014, 06:51 PM - Edit history (2)

I can show you written histories of many events where there is no academic consensus as to what exactly happened, why it happened and what the impact was. If, for example, there was universal consensus on the Civil War, there would have been no new books on the subject in decades.

Secondly, history exists on many levels. There is no harm with military reenactors. It is not like they can damage history.

Scientific peer review is irrelevant to social sciences like history. One tenet of peer review is that everyone gets the same result. That is clearly not the case in a subjective discipline like history where personal interpretation is the name of the game.

thought I'd share what I knew rather than letting opinion stand in denial of reality.

clashing with Roman reenactors.

I've seen plenty of rural folk with hobby interests in using horse-drawn implements

The Globe Theater does reenactments with period accents and costumes...

I had a teaching colleague who only fished for musky with lures modeled on antiques

I accept reenactment as something people do...I just don't want to reenact being a patient for a dentist doing living history.

Where you will find the swastika all over the place and it has nothing to do with fascism.

are some sources of that symbol.

That symbol is "Indian" in the sense of South Asia as Hindu.

Amazing how much misinformation goes on unchallenged on DU.

It's been used by many cultures and in native American art.

Before talking about "misinformation" educate yourself by going to this link so you won't give out misinformation in your 12th post:

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_thule10.htm

Native Americans used a similar symbol but it is historically UNRELATED to the Sanskritic/Aryan "swastika," from whence the Nazi symbol derived.

So my point, for all you wool gatherers. Is that the "Native American Swastika" bears ZERO historical relationship with the Nazi swastika, which originated in South Asia.

Fucking ignorant DU nonsense. Many things that look the same are not historically related.

But go on thinking you're smart.

Have you read any of the other posters disputing your nonsense also.

That symbol, I repeat, has been prevalent in many cultures, not just South Asia or Nazi Germany.

Get a grip, buddy, and look it up. It's pretty common knowledge.

with designs made of thumb tacks, stuck into the wooden stocks. One I saw described a swastika.

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The Cross used to be a sword at rest; the symbol of the Christians was the ichthys which was arguably the vesica pisces, a fertility symbol.

In our current culture the swastika is a symbol of right wing fanaticism, bigotry and racism.

What is your point - apart from specious?

People look for what they know, not for what it is. The same with flags, what they see is colored by what they know, or don't know.

The Brewster Buffalo is a dead give away.

is just a scale model of crosses used by Romans to torture and execute people (not just christians, they hadn't been invented yet). The similarity of shape with the hilt guard on a sword in relation to the blade and with the cross is just a coincidence that was taken advantage of by christians.

That looks like my memory of what the reverse of the $500 looks like, but I'm not in a place to judge that (other than saying to an amateur it is not immediately fake). Ironically, by the time they were issuing notes that large it was at the point that they were basically just worth the paper they were printed on.

and are often bought by folks thinking they are the genuine article. Another wave of "reprints" occurred when I was a kid; a stack of bills (in brown hue) could be had for 15¢. So, the value finally reached a par all could agree on!

There are already "Cold War Re-enactors"...

…is that the Northern Virginia battle flag later appeared in the corner of the Stainless Banner, one of the flags the Confederacy adopted after ditching the Stars and Bars.

Since so much of the war was fought in Virginia, there were lots of opportunities for the battle flag to appear, both on the battlefield and in artistic reconstructions of the battles that took place there. A lot of people don't realize how much of the war was fought outside Virginia.

Not excusing, just explaining.

Nonetheless, neither the Stainless Banner, nor the Battle Colors of the Army of Northern Virginia, nor even the Bonnie Blue Flag, are what people are discussing. The only question is about a flag with no Civil War provenance.

I've seen several sources (not all sympathetic with "The Cause" or whatever they want to call it) who refer to it as the Confederate battle flag, not specifically the battle flag of the ANV.


I personally find flying any flag associated with the Confederacy to be distasteful at best, unless it's being used for historical purposes (re-enactment, making a film, etc.).

to the teahadist militias, to Hollywood moonshiners and yeoman runners like the Dukes of Hazard.

The confederates WERE in rebellion and the image is certainly related to that rebellion and that symbol's connection to the southern rebellion, which is why it's in the insignia of the Confederate Air Force...by the way, I do know there WAS NO CONFEDERATE AIR FORCE

has changed their name to the Commemorative Air Force. Among other reasons, they felt the name was detrimental to fund raising.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commemorative_Air_Force#Name

A lot of people were fighting quite literally for flags, in a way we would find nearly inexplicable today.

The majority of Medals of Honor presented were for defending the colors.

In battles of the time, the colors represented command and control.

Capturing an enemy banner had great honor attached to the capturer and would lead to decorations and promotions.

Would it be less of a racist emblem if the asshole in the t-shirt correctly declared it to be the Confederate Naval Jack?

I do, however, try to keep things accurate when people talk about the actual battle colors of the Civil War. Maybe it's a stupid thing to care about, but it's something I do care about.

However, you might need to accept that others simply don't care about it, at least not enough to give greater priority to the 150-year old name of a flag than to its modern connotation as an emblem of racism.

I see glaring errors all the time in films set in the medieval period, but I don't expect anyone else to get worked up about my own niche interest.


In practical terms, the historically precise designation of the flag is wholly irrelevant to nearly all discussions of the modern significance of the symbol.

It's harder to make a case that you're merely honoring your ancestors when you're using the flag adopted by the Klan, rather than the official flag that they fought under.

they can burn them all.

is solid white.

A version with 9 stars preceded it and another version with 7 stars preceded that.

It was followed by a version with thirteen stars that was in effect from November 28, 1861 through May 1, 1863.

This was followed by a flag that was a white field with the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia as an ensign in the upper left corner.

a few times a week.They Have the Army of Tennessee battle flag displayed,which is what most people refer to as "The Confederate Flag".
http://www.confederate-flags.org/confederate%20army%20of%20tennessee.html

vast majority of folks displaying a confederate flag - whether historically correct, or not - are racists, at least in my area of the country. Sorry.

My only point is that the flag on the roof of the Dukes' of Hazzard's car was not an historic flag of the Civil War period.

in Atlanta, does not have a long history of racism. Heck, the founders of the Ga. Klan owned it, held big Klan rallies there, and encouraged ruining the mountain by carving a bunch of losing confederates on the side. To this day, I seldom go there. Too much bad mojo. Just like any flag that looks like a confederate flag, or even the Gadsden flag nowadays.

many times,and cable car to the top,took the kids years ago.... its a tourist attraction/natural wonder and nothing more now.

But I do know of what you speak.

Its not really "in Atl" tho.

Last edited Mon Sep 29, 2014, 04:49 PM - Edit history (1)

I don't think I will ever forget the photos in the paper when they'd hold a big Klan rally there, or the racists I went to school with who still long for those days.

It's hard to say it's "nothing more than a tourist attraction" when there is a three acre carving like this on the side of the mountain:

Concern noted.

As noted in the OP. IT was NOT a the CSA Flag.

The national flags were very different.

It is rewritten history to claim that is the CSA flag.

Concern noted.

About all you ever contribute.

Anybody who calls the Southern Cross (Battle Flag of the Army of Tennessee) flag "The Stars and Bars" is historically inaccurate as well.

Appreciate your post. Please, always help us know these things.

Why do you think that is? Flag caring is an activity I was never able to get into, so I don't understand it. Many people care deeply about flags, but I don't understand why. Seems like idol worship to me, but many Christians obviously disagree, so I strongly suspect that I am wrong.

What's up with flags?

As a southerner by birth, I loath the 'confederate flag' of the racists of this country.

The Confederacy was a collection of traitorous slave owners who were terrified of losing their power to Northern industrialists.
It just goes to show that some fears can be self fulfilling in the most tragic of ways.

And as the great-great-grandaughter of at least four men who fought for the South, from Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina, I'm horrified by the people who would fight to the death in defense of a society that bought and sold people.

That ship, so to speak, has sailed.

Interesting that the Confederate flag has just 12 stars while the other two each have 13. .... time to go to wiki ....

when the whites killed the Indians and Mexicans to make this country?



Do they recreate those battles?

Okay, you have said what I always wonder about. Why not a reenactment of interment camps during WWII? Strange hobby, but I guess someone likes it. Even stranger, I never knew they had American civil war reenactments in India. Who knew?

shit plz.

Edit: I can ride my ATV a few miles and be at the old internment camps,my GF's mother was born in one.

yet we don't reenact them. Do people reenact U.S. military vs. native american wars? I'm going to guess just the Civil War. Op lives in India.

that we killed all who got in the white mans way.

This is bizarre.