http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/walmart-...rchandise/

Quote:Walmart set to stop selling Confederate flag merchandise

Add this to their closing stores so Jade Helm 15 could take over Texas and the nazi nutters will go berserk.

I mean, it's nice to see Walmart trying to do the right thing, for once.

(June 22, 2015 at 10:04 pm)rexbeccarox Wrote: I mean, it's nice to see Walmart trying to do the right thing, for once.

It's a start.  Now let them provide their staff with a liveable wage.

(June 22, 2015 at 10:33 pm)Beccs Wrote:

(June 22, 2015 at 10:04 pm)rexbeccarox Wrote: I mean, it's nice to see Walmart trying to do the right thing, for once.

It's a start.  Now let them provide their staff with a liveable wage.

As far as I'm concerned, that's way more important than the confederate flag, but it's a symbol that characterizes hate, so at least it's something.

Firstly, it's the battle flag of north virginia, not the confederate flag, and secondly..it doesn't characterize hate any more than my crossed rifles with the scroll "cold steel" or the union jack - but, unlike my crossed rifles or the union jack...it does remind us of something uncomfortable and embarrassing about our country.  

It's something, sure, but it's something pandering and ignorant....and that's amusing given that the general idea seems to be that offering this flag was pandering to ignorance in the first place.  There's no nice way to say this...but a person who sees the battle flag of north virginia and immediately jumps to hate, is expressing exactly that which they are criticizing.  It doesn't actually matter whether or not the person agrees with that "hate", therein represented, or whether they vehemently oppose it.  Both groups are fantasizing about some hated "other" group.  Both sides are fantasizing about the meaning of that flag, or it's promise.  It;s a fucking battle flag...and tame in comparison to many which we still use and no one bats an eye about regardless of how much blood has been shed while they wave.  If walmart pulled my units battle flag off the shelves there would be chest thumping aplenty about how unamerican it was to do so.  This we're comfortable with, though, because the stars and bars were on the wrong side of history and the wrong end of the table come time to wave a different flag, a white one.  This we're comfortable with, because -two- ignorant groups have a fantasy regarding what that flag represented or why the drums were beat for war.  We have mytholigized that conflict immensely, myths need villains, and villains need a villainous flag to fly.  

This is a battle flag that american soldiers fought and died under.  It flew just a hop and a skip away from DC (the reason it's so often mistaken for the confederate flag in the first place....Richmonds proximity and the ferocity of battles where it flew - and other confederate states desire to honor or emulate those they saw as the first and front lines).  The lack of respect for that (from both sides), to me, is positively fucking -disturbing-.  Then again, this is Murica!, where we only respect the winner.

For flavor, here are a couple of flags my family fought under during the civil war.  


Apparently one of those, but not the other, "characterizes hate" , or some such bullshit. I know, I know...my point would be equally lost on some racist shithead who -also- thinks the confederate flag he flies stands for white supremecy, but so does wearing a god-damned pillowcase on your head...and Walmart still sells -those-, huh? If Walmart stopped selling bars -and- pillowcases those motherfuckers would rally under a flattened bud light can..........

(June 23, 2015 at 10:06 am)Rhythm Wrote: Firstly, it's the battle flag of north virginia, not the confederate flag, and secondly..it doesn't characterize hate any more than my crossed rifles with the scroll "cold steel" or the union jack - but, unlike my crossed rifles or the union jack...it does remind us of something uncomfortable and embarrassing about our country.  

I guess it ingrained itself in people's minds to be the Confederate Flag because Lee, leading the North Virginia army, fought under this flag.

For anyone wondering, this seems to be the real deal.

Pretty much.  At the time, however, if you saw that flag coming over the hill you wouldn't think "Here comes the Confederacy" you'd think "Here comes Lee".  A -slightly- more intimidating prospect in it's specificity.  A more interested and less polemic investigation of the man who flew that flag, or rather commanded the forces that flew it, and what it represented might reveal some surprising details.  Lee thought that succession was a bad idea, but conceded that it had been democratically decided upon.  He resigned his commission (with what would be The Union), and assumed command of North Virginias troops.  Had virginia decided to declare for the Union.......he woul;d have as well (we have his words to that effect and no reason to doubt them).  He had a very pessimistic view of the Confederacy, and he didn't seem to be very proud of his own achievements....a letter to his wife, advising her to find joy in her life by doing good reads:

Quote:When I measure my own by that standard I am filled with confusion and despair.

The confederacy needed commanders, and without decent commanders it would have been butchery to an even greater extent.  He appears to have known this from the start...and worried in his life that history would take a dim view of his character and motives.  When it was all over, he intended to continue to serve the country, regardless of who won, as he had served the country prior to hostilities.   The people under his command were inspired by him (for better or for worse), and they were defending their homes from what they saw as an invading force.  Perhaps that;s why they were so successful? The sad endcap to the story (before anyone thinks I'm making an effigy of the man) was that due to his appalling mismanagement, regardless of his previous success, the Battle of Gettysburg became a meat grinder....it stands as an example of the greatest possible mistake a military commander could make..or rather as a series of them. Due to his poor command decision he assumed the role of butcher himself and in so doing sealed the fate of the Confederacy.

But, you know...hate and stuff, that simple.

(June 23, 2015 at 11:35 am)Rhythm Wrote: The confederacy needed commanders, and without decent commanders it would have been butchery to an even greater extent.

Which is hard to imagine. Weapons grew more and more advanced within the 19th century, yet all the armies still employed nearly the same tactics as during the Napoleonic wars. It's not only the American Civil war, it's all the wars being fought at that time. Even in WWI, they still believed that blindly charging the enemy would get them anywhere.

Indeed, Shrapnel was a name before it was a thing.....just as one example.  As an example of what the stars and bars stood for (and still stands for today among the non bigoted set of the south)...

Quote:Approximately 12,500 men in nine infantry brigades advanced over open fields for three-quarters of a mile under heavy Union artillery and rifle fire. Although some Confederates were able to breach the low stone wall that shielded many of the Union defenders, they could not maintain their hold and were repulsed with over 50% casualties, a decisive defeat that ended the three-day battle and Lee's campaign into Pennsylvania.[1] Years later, when asked why his charge at Gettysburg failed, General Pickett replied: "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickett's_Charge

12,500 men, infantry like myself - and americans like many of us on these boards......on foot.....advanced three quarters of a mile under shrapnel and small arms fire on the orders relayed to them by their commander despite having known beforehand that it would fail.  Cold Steel, if -ever- there was any.

Here's a view of the field.....(from the Unions POV)..imagine yourself advancing on this..for me, the prospect is terrifying.


Boy, this wiki page is a goldmine...lol....William Faulkner on Pickets charge, the flag they fought under..... and what it means/meant...a lost cause.

Quote:For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago.

Im -my- perfect world...both the klansman who wave it and the people who accept their waving it...going so far as to -give them the fucking flag- would feel shame, and for the same reasons in both cases. We shouldn't be happy to get rid of the flag, we should be wrenching it from the hands of those cunts. It's embarrassing to me, frankly, the manner in which this is so commonly discussed. Our -owners- set us at each others throats and then managed to deflect the indignation and hatred that we should have laid at -their- feet.......at the feet, instead, of a defeated battle flag. I see no cause for celebration in the flag that so many americans died under being treated this way by either side. It's disgraceful.

Note, there are a lot of 14 year olds involved. They're braver or stupider than grown men, since they can't quite grip the concept of death meaning real death. But only if you were lucky in the days of the Civil War. If you got gut shot, things got really nasty and if you got limb shot, chances were that you lost the extremity in question, given the large calibre bullets they used.