SC Gov to push for removal of confederate flag.

[BoringGuy45]

Didn't the slave ships sail out of Boston to Africa and then to Charleston? I love how Northerners like to think they are so pure in the slave debate.

Neither side was innocent of slavery. As I said earlier, the depiction of the heroic North vs. the evil South is not true at all. The sweatshops that so many industrialists were running in the North were absolutely no better than the slavery in the South. It was racist as well, only Irish, Italians, and other immigrants were the slaves instead of Africans. In some ways, northern slavery was worse, as it was hypocritical and deceptive. People were forced to work 12 or more hours at a time, 7 days a week, with no days off, no sick time, no workers comp. They were often forced to live on company property and were only paid in company credits, which they had to then pay back to the company for rent, food, and materials for work. The credits they were paid were usually less than the cost of rent, food, etc, meaning the more they worked, the more they were in debt, meaning they basically had to work forever. Oh, and if they were injured or maimed on the job, into debtors prison they went. There's no way around it, that's slavery. Worse than that, even after slavery was banned, these practices continued well into the 20th Century.

So the South was absolutely right to view the North as hypocritical in its condemnation of Southern slavery.

[tb-av]

I think it's important to look specifically at SC and this issue, not a general issue of that flag being removed from a state house per se. Many view it as there specifically as an "F U" to the Feds during Civil Rights conclusions, and the dates do match up, but the actual intent, is not 100% clear. This seems a balance write up:

The claim:

"The Confederate battle flag in South Carolina was first flown at the statehouse in 1961. "It was flown as a symbol of massive resistance to racial desegregation."

— Eugene Robinson on Sunday, June 21st, 2015 in comments on NBC's "Meet the Press"

The evidence:

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact...rolina-state-/

I'm far from a PC type who's always in favor of reacting to anything that might possibly offend, but I'm willing to look at this one objectively.

Yes, that's right.... but the flag used to fly atop the building as FU to the Feds. But it was later voted and moved to a 'neutral' position.

Now in VA Terry "How the hell did I win the election?" McCauliffe has taken it upon himself to remove it from the vanity license plate. So a group of people had to gather names, pay fees, pay ongoing fees to have that license plate and now ... poof... another knee jerk politician pats himself on the back. Doesn't matter what it stands for... he is enlightened.

Sons of Confederate Veterans --- think about that one a minute

[TAZ]

God forbid we actually do something useful like look into why this deranged loonatic was walking among the sane folks. Maybe we could even think about how to better help the next potential time bomb. NOPE. Let's remove a stupid flag that offends someone. Yeah that's do it.

How do I make the stupid stop???

[WillBrink]

Yes, that's right.... but the flag used to fly atop the building as FU to the Feds. But it was later voted and moved to a 'neutral' position.

If it's on state or Fred property, it's not neutral in that context. I don't know a thing about the Gov of SC, but I do know removal of that flag was not her idea either. Just jumping on the popularity bandwagon. We all know removal of that flag will have zero impact on future events.

Now in VA Terry "How the hell did I win the election?" McCauliffe has taken it upon himself to remove it from the vanity license plate. So a group of people had to gather names, pay fees, pay ongoing fees to have that license plate and now ... poof... another knee jerk politician pats himself on the back. Doesn't matter what it stands for... he is enlightened.

Sons of Confederate Veterans --- think about that one a minute

Yes, that one seems to be crossing the line (which in a free society will move back and forth over time). Context and legality is always part of the equation to such issues. To play devils advocate, what about someone who wants a Black Panther flag on their plate and claim it's not about hating white people, but about black freedom? Would you buy that? Me either. Should the state be involved, regardless of the topic, in printing socially contentious issues such as that? Probably not.

If you or I, as private citizens want to put a sticker on our car with that flag, or Black Panther Party, or Rainbow Love, or "you can take my guns from my cold dead hands" etc, I support that 100%. I don't honestly have issue per se with them deciding they don't want to be in the biz of socially contentious topics such as that.

[WillBrink]

Neither side was innocent of slavery. As I said earlier, the depiction of the heroic North vs. the evil South is not true at all. The sweatshops that so many industrialists were running in the North were absolutely no better than the slavery in the South. It was racist as well, only Irish, Italians, and other immigrants were the slaves instead of Africans. In some ways, northern slavery was worse, as it was hypocritical and deceptive. People were forced to work 12 or more hours at a time, 7 days a week, with no days off, no sick time, no workers comp. They were often forced to live on company property and were only paid in company credits, which they had to then pay back to the company for rent, food, and materials for work. The credits they were paid were usually less than the cost of rent, food, etc, meaning the more they worked, the more they were in debt, meaning they basically had to work forever. Oh, and if they were injured or maimed on the job, into debtors prison they went. There's no way around it, that's slavery. Worse than that, even after slavery was banned, these practices continued well into the 20th Century.

So the South was absolutely right to view the North as hypocritical in its condemnation of Southern slavery.

End of the day, no one is innocent of anything. So, shades of "guilt" are what's used, and of course the winner generally decides who the "guilty" party is. There was no country, or race (including Africans) who were not involved with slavery that didn't benefit from it in some way. It's who did what and when, and how they did it, etc, that gets parsed out over time.

[Averageman]

Neither side was innocent of slavery. As I said earlier, the depiction of the heroic North vs. the evil South is not true at all. The sweatshops that so many industrialists were running in the North were absolutely no better than the slavery in the South. It was racist as well, only Irish, Italians, and other immigrants were the slaves instead of Africans. In some ways, northern slavery was worse, as it was hypocritical and deceptive. People were forced to work 12 or more hours at a time, 7 days a week, with no days off, no sick time, no workers comp. They were often forced to live on company property and were only paid in company credits, which they had to then pay back to the company for rent, food, and materials for work. The credits they were paid were usually less than the cost of rent, food, etc, meaning the more they worked, the more they were in debt, meaning they basically had to work forever. Oh, and if they were injured or maimed on the job, into debtors prison they went. There's no way around it, that's slavery. Worse than that, even after slavery was banned, these practices continued well into the 20th Century.


So the South was absolutely right to view the North as hypocritical in its condemnation of Southern slavery.

What is often ignored is some of the most dangerous labor done in those factories, mills and mines was done by Children.
It was so much easier to fit one of those little rascals in to the inner workings of a loom, mine shaft or mill to keep the equipment running and well oiled. Plus once the company store had you so far in debt one of the only logical though unscrupulous ways to pay it down was to put as many of your capable family members on the job.
I think a lot of our history is pretty ugly, but again, we rewrite that history every so often in order to keep the peace and pick and choose those who were on the dirty end of the stick.
I would imagine in such times if you were 10 years old and your only two choices were to be working in a cotton field or riding a couple of miles on a trolly to the bottom of a coal mine to pursue manual labor, most would choose the cotton field.

And of course no one ever beat or whipped these kids to get a little more motivation out of them....naah never happened.

[tb-av]

If it's on state or Fred property, it's not neutral in that context.

It's not neutral in the sense of being off .gov property but it was agreed to in the fair and neutral manner that they all agreed to at the time. Now there is zero neutrality... It's simply a racist flag with respect to it's handling.

Black Panthers - Confederate Soldiers Flag
Oh my goodness... the imagery.....

Obama standing behind Tim Kane, Terry McCauliffe, Mark Warner and showing them who has a grip on things.

Cost of a confederate flag $50
Cost of a Black Panter vanity plate printing $40K
The look on the faces of three so called anti racist white Dems after removing the confederate plate and allowing the Black Panther plate ---- Priceless!

Walmart and EBay have joined in. No mas Confederados

[Moose-Knuckle]

The blue star above "ARKANSAS" represents the Confederate States of America, which Arkansas joined in secession.

Yup, my great-great grandfather's bronze footstone . . .

[Moose-Knuckle]

Yes, no slave ship sailed under a southern flag. They were US, UK, and several others.

They were mostly Portuguese and Dutch slavers.

[austinN4]

Yup, my great-great grandfather's bronze footstone . . .

1811 to 1888 = 77, pretty amazing for that time period and serving in the war!