Our Governor, who many here saw as no different than the Democratic candidate, went on a friendly radio station today to support the flag flying at the S.C. capitol. His support, he claimed, was that it was matter of “tradition.”
“As a citizen of this country and what’s happened, particularly to African Americans in that state, what’s your reaction to that, in 2015?” Braude asked.
Baker replied, “I do believe that the reason that flag still hangs there is, you know, what I would call sort of ‘tradition’ or something like that.”
His handlers quickly instructed him that he was an asshole, and wrote him an apology:
“I take my job as governor of 100 percent of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts very seriously, and as I said, I’m sorry if I didn’t do a particularly good job representing that today,” Baker told the Globe on the Thursday evening call arranged hastily by aides.
Today in South Carolina the state and U.S. flags were at half staff.
The Confederate flag in front of the capitol remained at the top of it’s pole.
And across the street from the Massachusetts state house the monument to the 54th Massachusetts still stands.
of Lindsay Graham. Baker has said he supports all of the GOP candidates for President. Graham outdid his usual sick tirades on terrorism by saying of the mass murder in his home state
“I just think he was one of these whacked out kids. I don’t think it’s anything broader than that,” Graham said. “It’s about a young man who is obviously twisted.”
Contrast that with Graham’s comments about Tsarnaev:
This man, in my view, should be designated as a potential enemy combatant and we should be allowed to question him for intelligence gathering purposes to find out about future attacks and terrorist organizations that may exist…
We now have proof that Graham is a racist and anti-Muslim bigot. Will Baker still support him?
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/06/18/3671525/wildly-different-ways-one-senator-responds-terrorism-boston-versus-charleston/
Can’t help but think Baker is already trying not to offend 2020 primary voters.
Since ex-Massachusetts governors have such a great shot at the SC vote.
he won’t merit any attention.
… as Michael Kinsley said, “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.”
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/06/18/south_carolina_confederate_flag_after_church_shooting_flag_at_capitol_still.html
she would take the damn thing down and wait for a lawsuit. But she won’t.
That’s stupid.
That’s what all those people at those lunch counters were. Put your heads down and OBEY.
because it is a non-constructive personal attack. But I’m leaving this one up, in part because Fenway’s rejoinder is so obviously on point, and so obviously demolishes the “argument.” Cheers.
Imagine how great the world will be when everyone breaks the laws they don’t agree with.
how the world would be if no one ever did.
versus the grunt sniff tactics of I hate that stupid law lets break it mob mentality. Thanks for making it even clearer, davids idea really is stupid.
are you suggesting that if Haley had lowered Dylann Roof’s flag, it would be some kind of non-peaceful attack?
Please, tell me more. I’m interested in your response.
any concern of anyone in Massachusetts? Whatever absurd laws the fucked-up individuals running South Carolina have decided to pass, it should not be hard for any governor of Massachusetts to say with complete sincerity that that flag is an abomination and it has no place on the grounds of any public building anywhere in this nation except a museum as part of an exhibition. Massachusetts lost nearly 10 percent of the 150,000 troops it furnished in a four-year struggle to defeat that flag and hold together a nation South Carolina sought to destroy.
the governor had a reflexive states rights response to the question, then had a big oops moment when his friends and political associates got to him and he realized what he had said? Republicans are big on states rights when they don’t like what a federal government is telling them what to do and they don’t want to comply. States rights seems to be the argument of last choice. When Baker heard the question he may have responded with that thought in mind.
It has also allowed liberal ideas to get traction and get a foothold. Gay marriage, legal pot, RomneyCare, etc have all been brought to the forefront because of state’s rights. The founding fathers set up system which has worked well, even with some downside. The rest of the country is free to boycott SC until they get rid of the flag.
Does state’s rights have to do with it anyway? The question is not a legalistic one of “rights,” it’s a question of “right” and wrong. Many of the people who support that flag know damn well what it represents, and in fact revived the symbol in the 1950s specifically to protest integration orders coming from Washington. Those who legitimately believe it to be merely a symbol of their “heritage” need to take stock of what that heritage is and show a modicum of sensitivity toward the people in their own community who, quite justifiably, view it as a symbol of those who, right up to this very day, would terrorize and kill them rather than accept them as equal citizens.
There is a legitimate sphere for states to have their own laws, experiment, etc. That particular symbol, however, represents a stubborn refusal to accept the crucial limitations on the “state’s rights” doctrine that were written in blood over four years: a state can’t secede, it can’t have slavery, and it can’t discriminate on the basis of race. It has no legitimate place at an American public building.
I bet they wish their ancestors had invented the cannon and been able to fend off the invasion of europeans, so now when they see the stars and stripes they see the flag of an oppressor. Should we not fly that?
” If they can get you to believe absurdities, they can get you to commit atrocities.”
Fred Rich LaRiccia
..”I don’t agree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”
anyone from taking unilateral action against their ‘traditions’. One I read about last night said that it would take a 2/3s majority to change the name of any streets or buildings with names of historic figures in SC history. Is it just me, or does SC have a reputation, going back to earliest colonial days before we were a country, for this kind of behavior? It seems they’re always at the fore of anti federal government talk and action.
Named after J.C. Calhoun, champion of state’s rights and steadfast proponent of slavery.
The first pastor of Emanuel AME and a noted freedman who was basically lynched by a kangaroo jury for the crime of slave revolt. He was a true hero, not that butcher of the union and owner of other men.
….and goes back at least to the Federal Convention, where the SC delegation threatened the loudest to walkout if their precious “peculiar institution” was in any way tinkered with. It was SC that gave us the Nullification Crisis and SC that was first to secede upon Lincoln’s election. SC also fired the first shots of the Civil War targeting Ft. Sumter as the Union was trying to resupply it.
…this state gave us such “luminaries” as Preston Brooks, John C. Calhoun, and Strom Thurmond.:(
I don’t care what the law says Patrick! C’mon guys get your pitchforks ready! We have Baklers front lawn to loiter!
Just not BMG without it.
Don’t say stupid shit.
Do I really need to drag it out? Surely you can come up with something better than “da flag!”
That people in South Carolina defend that disgusting flag. I find it far more appalling when the supposedly moderate governor of my own state does the same. The guy just doesn’t get the pain of anyone outside his country club set.
and am skeptical about the Germans. My ex-wife had a German mother (born 1925) and her and her relatives have barely moved past being Nazis.
While we’re on the subject of the South, I am starting a movement to denounce all historical slaveholders, starting with Indian killer Andrew Jackson and moving on to Washington, Jefferson, etc.
Also following jconway’s lead on the CSA I have changed my mind about softy Abraham Lincoln. We should have hung all CSA soldiers for treason and appropriated all land in the South.
It’s lovely how you’ve aligned yourself with those who defend that noble banner. It’s a good look for you. I don’t know why the Governor isn’t sticking to his guns on this one.
Jconway’s actual suggestion, in plain black and white below, was merely that the federal government might have been better off implementing a southern policy that took into account Southern racism and intransigence and actually reflected the results of the fucking war.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Germany has publicly and thoroughly repudiated Nazism, and has banned the Nazi flag and the Nazi party and replicas thereof. Japan has issued dozens of public apologies for its imperialistic acts of aggression against other nations and atrocities during the war, and hasn’t invaded anyone since.
From the American South’s Confederate fetishists we get:
–A century plus of virulent racism, disenfranchisement, segregation, and officially-condoned terror.
–Violent resistance to any policies ever intended to eliminate or remedy same.
–Insistence that the war wasn’t really about slavery or racism, actual secession resolutions notwithstanding. It was about (insert fake reason here).
–Insistence that the flag isn’t about racism, even though it was revived about 2 weeks after the Brown v. Board decision to appear on half the state flags and half the rusty trailers of the South.
–Insistence that secession was totally legal anyway. States’ rights, on steroids, forever.
–Insistence that the Yankees started the war.
–Insistence that “I get to fly this flag because the Yankees burned my great-great-granddaddy’s barn.” (Tell that one to the people of Dresden, I bet they never thought of it. Hint: don’t want a war in your backyard, don’t start a fucking war.)
–Silly statements that people calling for taking down the “Confederate flag” are ignorant fools because that’s not even really the Confederate flag, it’s just the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, as if that wasn’t the largest and most famous force in the army of the CSA and as if people from Lynchburg to Tampa to Midland fly it because they really, really like Fairfax County.
A Republican supporter of Baker agreed with me on Facebook that the flag should come down from SC state property. So it’s definitely going to cause political problems for him, as well it should. The Bay States most decorated military unit was slaughtered by folks flying that flag.
I don’t buy the heritage argument at all. You got southern pride or local pride, fly your state flag. I got no problem with that (unless your state is Mississippi) .
“My ancestors fought under that flag’ argument goes out the window too.
Nobody whose grandfathers fought in Germany in WW2 could get away with the ‘my ancestors fought for their country’ argument and fly that flag on their property without being rightfully called out. Same here. The German flag ban is a very important point and practice to bring up Fenway, don’t give the Japanese too much credit though, but I would agree they are better than the Confederacy apologists in our own country.
apologized multiple times, starting in 1992, for what happened to the “comfort women.” Abe may have backtracked, but the statements were made. In any event, I don’t see those on the wrong side of the question insisting on flying flags and displaying symbols on public symbols that honor their side.
But here you are defending laws that require the display of anti-American racist symbols so I guess this is an issue that is still worth bringing up. 😉
… Any institution that flies the Confederate flag above the US flag and their own state flag prioritizes the Confederacy. Or did you miss the part wherein they lowered the US Flag and the SC State flag to half mast, but kept “da flag” in question at the top of the pole?
People die for flags. The standard bearer is the soldier in the unit who marches into battle carrying the flag. He often marched without weaponry to keep his hands free in order to keep the flag high and it was the job of the entire remainder of the unit to protect him.
People also kill for flags.
Oftentimes the photo is taken so that the confederate battle flag appears higher…
but it is, in fact, much lower. The confederate battle flag pole is something like 30 feet high. The American flag is flown from on top of the state house, which is 180 feet tall.
… but I was just going from the original diarist:
It never occured to me to care that the poles were not physically placing flags above or below each other. Symbolism being what it is: flying full, whatever the relative heights of the poles, continues, IMHO, to prioritize the Confederacy above the Union when the Union is at half-staff.
For those who consider the Confederate flag “their” flag, maybe it just wasn’t that sad a day.
LOL – You are aware that comparing the rules for lowering the US Flag and SC State Flag are different than the rules for lowering the Confederate flag, or did YOU miss that little diddy about it requiring a two-thirds vote by both branches of the General Assembly?
This is, of course, a big part of the problem. The rule itself privileges the Confederate flag over the United States flag and the official South Carolina state flag and therefore is highly problematic. I do not understand the fawning deference to a vile law.
What if the South Carolina legislature passed a law saying governors could pardon white prisoners, or Republican prisoners, or prisoners with Confederate flag tattoos with the stroke of a pen, but it requires “a two-thirds vote by both branches of the General Assembly” to pardon black prisoners, or Democratic prisoners, or prisoners with an American flag tattoo?
Would you continue to repeat like a dolt, “But…but…but it requires a two-thirds vote by both branches of the General Assembly?”
I believe the US flag code calls for other flags to be lowered as well so no flag ends up being above the US.
…they wouldn’t accept a three-fifths vote instead.
But, alas, is an easier threshold to meet.
… that having concretized the preferences in legislature somehow bolsters your point and invalidates mine? ? ? That makes about as much sense as a houseplant using the Internet…. Oh, wait…
Be patient, somebody’ll be around with water, soon I expect…
LOL – didn’t need to invalidate your point as you did it for me. LOL
Why are you digging such a big hole for yourself?
Do really want to be expending so much effort and expressing such infantile enjoyment over protection of an inherently anti-American and racist symbol? Do you really?
While the law to take down the flag requires 2/3, the law requiring the 2/3 only requires a majority to change.
So, in addition to you being wrong six ways to Sunday on this thread, you’re also wrong about needing a 2/3s vote from either legislative body.
…of ordinary statute requiring a supermajority to change or repeal anyway.
N/T
You were hoping for more?
The article is about Baker and flag flying in SC, nice try though. : )
I feel you. It’s not like the flag in question is a politically charged symbol flying on the grounds of the capitol of the state where the shooting took place. It’s not like one of the victims was a state senator in that very building. It’s not like the killer had that exact flag, a symbol of his ideology, on his license plate. Oh, wait, it’s exactly like that.
Automatic answer for a Massachusetts Governor not looking to pander to the worst elements of his party’s national, rather than state, base: “I don’t believe that flag should be flying on the grounds of a public building, let alone a state capitol building like the one I go to work in every day. It should come down.” Frank Sargent would’ve said that.
Braude teed it up for Baker to go that way and he didn’t. It’s too bad because opposition to the Confederate flag is pretty much the bare minimum I expect from a Massachusetts governor of any party. It took 12 or 24 hours, but Baker’s changed his tune. Why can’t you?
Da Flag! Da Flag! Where is the outrage! Outrage!!!!! <- Look femway49, extra exclamation points! Where is the outrage!
Tedious …
I apologized for not being nice to you yesterday.
Fenway49 is one of the most well-spoken, thoughtful people on BMG. Even if I disagreed with him, I’d follow him if he asked me to.
I pegged you for a troll (and an asshole) when you first started posting. You lasted just long enough for me to apologize before you showed your true colors.
I somehow missed this exchange. I greatly appreciate your words and I feel the same way about you.
He says you’re not helping.
…
What do you think about South Carolina flying the flag of rebellion AND flying it above the flag of the United States??
I know what will satisfy the mob petr!
Gov Baker should organize an Ourage Committee to voice outrage over whatever the other 50 states are doing. At any given moment they will be ready to slide down a pole and into the “Outrage Mobile” to speed across the Commonwealth announcing their outrage to all!
… are all too happy that South Carolina failed in it’s attempt at secession.
The entire phrase “other 50 states” (sic) only has meaning upon a foundation of blood and toil meant to keep that flag, in particular, from flying at all.
“outrage”? You bet. Unless, of course, you dispute the notion of a Union altogether.
I don’t usually feed trolls but jesus christ.
It’s a flag of anti-American treason. The CSA killed more Americans than Al Qaeda, Iraq, the Viet Cong, Communist Korea, the Germans (WWI), Spaniards, Mexicans and British (both times) combined. It killed more Americans in a single war than the Axis did in WWII.
It’s a flag of anti-black terrorism. Used by the KKK, used by Wallace and other opponents of integration, and obviously used by the killer in Charleston on his license plates while he also had the flags of two apartheid regimes in Africa on his jacket. It flew at full staff mocking the American and South Carolina state flags flying at half staff in honor of the victims. It’s gotta go.
That’s a filthy P.O.S. that represents slavery as a way of life. All remnants of it need to be removed and destroyed. And Baker, republican or not, should know better.
That the party of Lincoln openly associates with the same folks that are glad he got killed.
“With malice towards all those motherf*ckers in the South” should have been the line he used.
But there is something to be said about Thaddeus Stevens (played by Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln) and his plan for the South. Military rule for 10-20 years and readmission only after each state guaranteed and enforced racial equality in their own constitutions, land reform to provide equality of opportunity and property ownership to freemen and poor whites alike, and guaranteed public education. He was really a man ahead of his time, pro-labor, pro-social security even before Bismarck proposed it in Germany, and happily and openly involved in an interracial marriage. His reconstruction would’ve likely prevented many of the problems we are dealing with today.
His reconstruction would’ve likely prevented many of the problems we are dealing with today.
The bargain of 1876 was one where the candidate with less popular votes became president in return for ending Reconstruction. All that business with people who look wrong voting was then stowed away for about another century in the South.
…Lincoln probably would not have gotten himself impeached for it.
Confederate flag love notwithstanding, they’re still the Party of Lincoln. 95% of black voters are fools, fools to align themselves with the evil Democrat Party because George Wallace and Jeff Davis.
Including supposedly ‘reasonable Republicans’ like that asshat David Brooks. Which party did Thurmond and Helms defect to?
“But you guys kept Robert Byrd around”, like Hugo Black, he was a former Klan member who redeemed himself with a pro-civil rights and civil liberties record for the duration of his career. If he wanted to stay a Dixiecrat he would’ve followed Strom and Jesse over to the GOP.
Our own Republican Senator Ed Brooke was actually more disgusted that those two embraced him as just another member of the club when he went to take a swim in the Senate pool for the first time, he was expecting a fight and would’ve preferred it to their literal naked hypocrisy. Swimming with a black man in private while fighting to keep public facilities separate and unequal. We now know that Strom really liked race mixing in private, so long as it was on his terms. I’d take a repentant Klansman like Byrd or Black over hypocrites like those.
Displayed the flag, not out of racism, but of being lower class kids who like the rebel image. I’m sure there a lot of people down south who think along the same lines. You can’t separate the fact that it is offensive to a large group of people. But what”s going on here seems to be a war by symbolic proxy. It didn’t cause 9 deaths. Eliminating it from the capital roof might be desirable, but it’s not going to change anything.
I agree that actual policy changes trump symbolic issues like this one, but it’s not a binary choice. It’s ridiculous to lower the American and state flag at half staff while ignoring the same flag the killer displayed flying high above either. It’s a slap in the face to the victims, one of whom as a State Senator fought to get that flag banned, and had to face the indignity of walking by it every day on the way to work. I had two longer pieces on the flag and my reaction to the shooting on Facebook, and an old teacher of mine came out of the woodwork to thank me.
He’s black, from South Carolina and teaches in Georgia, but he taught a group of Boston and Cambridge kids for a summer up in Concord when he was still in school. To this day he says we are the only white students he ever taught to get why it’s offensive. And I am not bashful or proud of that, but rather ashamed that too many white people across America either don’t know or don’t care enough about their fellow citizens to ask what they think and see why it’s offensive. If Nikki Haley wanted to demonstrate that her state is not a bastion of racist anger, this would be a bold first move.
If any good comes out of this massacre, maybe South Carolina will lower its flag and stop offending people. The flag, obnoxious as it may be, is only a symbol where racist activism is alive and well. We’re not immune to racism here, but South Carolina is another place entirely.
South Carolina routinely had GOP officials involved in a white supremacist organization known as the Council of Conservative Citizens.
Nikki Haley had a CCC guy on her campaign steering committee until he got outed. She doesn’t care about racism. Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr was their keynote speaker in 1998. Trent Lott spoke to the group multiple times. These are the people who opposed the NAACP when they tried to get the flag removed. They are nativists and white supremacists. They have a chapter in Charleston, SC. These people used to be Democrats, but now their political home is the GOP.
Getting rid of a flag isn’t going to change that. I don’t know what does, but I’m guessing the symbolic war against racism has reached it usefulness. I’d support it coming down. I’d vote against it. It might make some people feel better–and that’s no small thing–but it’s not going to materially change anything.
Would you say the same with skinheads in Germany and here in the USA with a swastika…..How about a town in the USA with a German heritage hoisting the swastika on the town common, just to honor history?
or telling me something? I was providing a data point, not saying it was okay.
The kids I’m referring to had no idea that anyone would construe the flag as racist. I spoke with one of them, who was a student, to explain the racist aspect to him and warn him that people would see it as racist. The flag did disappear from the back of his pickup truck. The fact is, there are a lot of ignorant people out there. And a lot of people don’t share the same upbringing as many of us.
…is the very fact that it IS divisive. I personally don’t cringe as hard as some do at the sight of it and can appreciate the history argument to some extent, but a flag flown at the State House should embody the unity of the state and the Confederate ensign clearly does the opposite. Even if you don’t agree that it should be hurtful you should acknowledge that to many it is and join the call to take it down.
That said I don’t understand why Baker was asked since it’s not within his power to do anything about it. It sounds like a reporter was desperate to create a story. If Baker said it should come down the story would be how he broke with a lot of his party, but saying what he did say also gave us a story, but to what end?
Also, I think we should be careful about giving this piece of cloth too much credit/blame. Flying it did not make the assailant open fire in the church or even suggest it would be tolerated. He alone is responsible for his actions. The Governor is in fact calling for his execution. Likewise, if Nikki Haley were to sign an executive order today removing all such banners from state property it’s not as if hate groups and racist attitudes in SC will disappear by Monday morning.
Probably because he’s as popular as Elizabeth Warren and we need something (anything) to have a reason to hate him. This is the best we could come up wit . . . Da Flag!
what the media does. They don’t really mean anything by it. They just asked stupid stuff like regular people ask each other if they saw that Vanity Fair cover with Caitlin Jenner.
Baker said what he said because he’s what some of my black students have referred as “ignorant.” He just doesn’t know any better. He didn’t mean to be offensive. He just didn’t know any better. And since most people are “ignorant,” most people won’t hold it against him.
Baker is white in the Stuff White People Like way. Here’s an excerpt from that blog on TED talks:
. That’s what states rights are too our governor, something he thinks, something Republicanish that allows him to feel smart, but not something he’s spent a lot of time pondering.
Baker’s done enough thinking and maybe some talking at cocktail parties so that he thinks he has an actual opinion about states rights. Of course, he had no idea of what he didn’t know. That’s not to say that Baker is stupid. Just ignorant. He is intelligent, just not an intellect. (Not that we’ve had an intellect in politics recently or very often. God knows, Deval Patrick was no intellect).
My impression of Baker is that he’s very much one of those “goals and priorities” people. If he’s forced to consider something outside of his current focus, his natural instinct is to circumvent it in the most neutral way possible and get back to what he wants to talk about. That instinct can sometimes get him in trouble, as it did here, but I wouldn’t read anything deeper into it.
“managerial” in there, but I took it out. I agree with what you say, but still think that his thoughts are average white guy. He’ll work on making the trains run on time, but he’ll never invent a new method of transportation.
.
Starting with a state government that had to be dragged into the 20th century by court orders to integrate it’s schools and let all it’s citizens vote. The same government that still symbolically disobeys the constitution’s commitment to equality by flying that flag of treason and terror higher than the American and state flags that were at half staff. To a person, every black person I’ve talked to including a former teacher from the Charleston area want it taken down. They would actually be really happy about it. If it makes racists sad and black people happy I am for it, even if it, it won’t solve our race problems but I don’t see how keeping it up improves them either.
I don’t get why this is so hard to understand.
The Confederate flag is to American blacks what the Swastika is to American Jews. We don’t tolerate ANYBODY flying the Swastika, period. We don’t say “it’s just a piece of cloth”.
Our tolerance of this offensive symbol is itself a symptom of our continuing racism. Blacks significantly outnumber Jews in today’s America, yet we scrupulously respect their rightful sensitivity about the Swastika, while essentially ignoring the pain we inflict on at least an order of magnitude more Blacks by tolerating the display of the Confederate flag.
The resulting message is loud and clear — Racism is alive and well in America in 2015. Including, sadly, our current Governor.
Maybe because the Holocaust was an event concentrated in such a short time span that resorted in the tortuous extermination in 6 million Jews and I believe almost as many others. It is an embodiment of pure evil that at least in my mind exceeds that of slavery. Not that the latter isn’t evil. I can’t explain it entirely, but I wince at the sight of the swastika in a way I don’t at the Confederate cross. I don’t have any connection to either genocide, but I have a hard time talking about the Holocaust without choking up in a way that does not affect me when I talk about slavery. No, this doesn’t make me racist or the least bit tolerant of it, and I have seen no evidence whatsoever that our Governor is a racist.
I will say, though, that I’ve learned a few things just in the last couple days about the 20th century revival of the Confederate cross. I knew it was not really the CSA national flag, but I hadn’t realized how much of a middle finger it was to the Civil Rights Movement. I feel that removing it from the SC State House is more urgent now than I did just a week ago.
Opinions vary. Your tolerance is certainly a lot higher than mine, for instance.
It;s not just that; it’s a giant “fuck you” to all people of color, all the time, and a declaration that the Sons of the Confederacy will continue to do all they can to beat those people down. It’s not just a gesture to a movement; it’s personal.
I suspect that has a lot to do with what you learned in school and your experiences in life to this point. As far as I know, there is no one out there successfully lobbying to soften the take on the Nazis in public school history textbooks as there is with the Confederacy. Keep digging – I suspect the more you learn, the more you’ll understand – and maybe even feel for yourself – the revulsion for that flag.
The bigger lesson is that we can’t always tell when we are being racist. Perhaps it is because I grew up in the Detroit area during a very volatile time and was surrounded by (and, I have to admit) participated in a lot of racist talk as a kid, I can never say to myself with 100% certainty that “I am not racist”. I work on it a hell of a lot, but if someone challenges me on something, or if I hear/read something that doesn’t match up to my experience, I try to look at it from where they are coming from so I can understand the effect better. “The meaning of a communication is the reaction you get” and all of that.
I noticed this year watching the twin Christmas movies Holiday Inn and White Christmas on TV that the blackface / minstral show scenes were edited out. These were once viewed as OK and at least in some cases with no intended malice toward the race that it mimics (I can’t speak for anyone involved in those movies, though). But they are still racist, no matter what the intent.
Don’t you remember the proposed march by the nazis?
Between “speech” private citizens may engage in without legal reprisals and what symbols a state’s government chooses to display on property that belongs equally to all residents as their seat of democratic self-government. Even among private actors something being constitutionally permissible doesn’t make it appropriate.
The American brand of “Nazi” has always been aligned with the KKK. The Confederate flag (in any of its variations) is the American Swastika. I support the freedom to show these offensive symbols and the ACLU action that confirmed that freedom.
That does not mean that they belong on ANY government building. I want the “American Swastika” to be universally rejected as an icon of hate. That is irrelevant to the First Amendment.
You said ” we don’t tolerate ANYBODY flying the swastika”, thought you forgot we were forced to because it was a private party/ free speech thing.
It was only a few weeks ago.
http://www.universalhub.com/2015/theres-logical-reason-ancient-and-honorable?nocache=1
yep, Charleston, SC. I doubt the Ancient and Honorable have any idea that it’s offensive to some, either. One could argue that Baker should know about the confederate flag, but my guess is that most white people have no idea.
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/boston/downtown/articles/2011/06/07/boston_militia_parade_brings_echoes_of_the_past
MA Gov. Baker: Just look across the street before discussing the Confederate flag
as a life-long student of American history, I wept at your moving tribute to our beloved 54th all-black Regiment and Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.
I had the honor of attending an anniversary celebration at the monument last year and met several descendants of those patriotic heroes and as a Gold Star brother I openly wept before them too for their noble sacrifice.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Was it just after he put his foot in his mouth over South Carolina and bit down hard?
…upon learning about those New Bedford fisherman losing their jobs allegedly thanks to those darn federal regulators.:)
The courage of the politician with no more elections ahead of them.
Opposes it in 2008 and 2012, part of the reason he never won SC. And I appreciate he said this now since it forces the question onto the 2016 field.
Conservatives should oppose a government founded on the premise of keeping significant numbers of people in bondage, but, we know how inconsistent they really are and how they’ve distorted the definition of their own philosophy beyond meaning.
From the Palmetto Post Courier
1 Avoid saying crazy stuff (I’m not smart enough…)
2 Quickly backtrack when braking rule 1
3. Tell voters that they will not have to pay much for anything