Random Thoughts
The remnants of Bill are still causing problems, currently in Arkansas on its way to the Ohio Valley.
Another Bush is running for President. The former governor of Florida, John Ellis Bush, is running as a monogram – J.E.B.
Donald Trump rubs salt in the wounds of a lot of investors in his real estate disasters by noting that he is a billionaire while his projects keeping going bankrupt. College students can’t cancel their student loans, but billionaires don’t have to pay for anything.
I see that the usual suspects are trying to spin the attack in Charleston, South Carolina as the act of a ‘lone wolf’ who was a mental defective, rather than another white supremacist terror attack.
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Yeah, one of those people being the teabagger governor of South Carolina, who insists that we’ll never know why this young man suddenly snapped and attached Christianity. Nevermind the young man’s very own writings, which make it clear that he hated black people as a threat to white supremacy. Or the young man’s statement to the witness he let go. She’s just baffled, baffled I say, about why this young man attacked a black church and killed a bunch of black people….
We’ve come a ways since 1963. But it seems like we’re going backwards again. I had hoped this kind of bigotry and hate would die with the WW2 generation that was the stalwart of the Klan in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Alas, it seems to have simply skipped a generation.
And BTW, he’s running as “JEB!”, with an exclamation point. Because, yeah, nothing says “this candidate is exciting!” like an exclamation point, right? I always think of Jeb Clampett everytime I see that…
It is so annoying that people continue to lie about this. It was domestic terrorism. Roof has never lied to me, so when he says he has to kill blacks so they will leave I’m willing to take him at his word.
South Carolina was the instigator of the Civil War. It was started in the city of Charleston; they still fly the flag of one of the Confederate armies; they name their streets after Confederate officials and officers. They promote racism, just like they always have, but call it “heritage, not hate’.
I call it heritage *AND* hate… because that’s the heritage that the Confederate flag represents: hate. It was written into the Confederate Constitution, it was expressly stated by the founders of the Confederacy, and it was expressly stated by the SC legislators who passed the law in 1962 putting that flag up on the capital — that black people were inferior, black people needed to be kept in their place, and that the proper place for black people was as slaves for white people (well, the last wasn’t expressed in 1962, only implied, sigh).
Somebody needs to dig up William Tecumseh Sherman’s mouldy corpse and tell him that the Confederate flag is flying over the South Carolina capital again. ‘Cause we know what he did the first time. He burned that sh*t down, big-time.
– Badtux the Southern Penguin
(Who knows *all* the dog whistles).
That was the flag of the Army of Tennessee, not the Confederacy. It is used as a symbol of the Daughters of Confederate Veterans, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the Ku Klux Klan. all of which were founded in Tennessee. I’m going to look around because I have a graphic of the flag that was used by South Carolina troops.
Uncle Billy was entirely too kind to Charleston on his last visit.
“I always think of Jeb Clampett” – Badtux
Hmm…
Close but no cigar, ‘Tux! 🙂
Jeb is just another ignorant son-of-a-Bush; we don’t need another of those for prez.
The original South Carolina battle flag was a blue flag with a single large white star, similar to the original Confederate Navy Standard which was a blue flag but with multiple white stars. That’s the flag that was flying above their artillery batteries as they fired upon Fort Sumpter. Later they adopted the battle flag of the Army of Virginia, which was a square version of the Stars and Bars with a white fringe around it. The Army of Tennessee, on the other hand, adopted a flag similar to the South Carolina Secession Flag but with the colors reversed to have red stripes in a cross shape (not the X shape of the Army Virginia battle flag) on a blue field. This lasted until 1864, when, butt-hurt after being run out of Tennessee by Sherman, their new general, Joe Johnston, decided one part of his plan to revive the morale of this near-destroyed army was to adopt a battle flag similar to the Army of Virginia flag, except theirs was rectangular — but *still* not the same proportions as the current “Confederate” flag, which has the proportions of the U.S. flag as decided upon by the KKK to make it easier to find flag manufacturers willing to manufacture it.
Interestingly, South Carolina is flying the historically correct square white-fringed Army of Virginia battle flag over their Confederate Soldier’s Memorial on the capitol grounds, not the rectangular KKK flag. I have to give them props for at least flying the correct flag at the correct place to fly that flag, though they’ve only been doing so since 2000, when they took down the incorrect KKK flag that was flown immediately below the US flag on their main flagpole and instead erected this historically correct flag on a small pole attached to the actual memorial.
Still, I wonder. How many states are flying Nazi flags? Zero. Why not? a) Because we fought the Nazis in a war and beat their butts, and b) because it would be very offensive to our Jewish population, which would correctly point out that it is the flag of a nation which considered them subhuman and enslaved them and, if they became non-productive or dared speak out about how they were being treated, killed them. Sort of like the same relationship blacks have to any Confederate flag. Hmm….
And Steve, it’s one letter difference, so a penguin can be easily mistaken on it 🙂
That is the ‘Bonnie Blue Flag’ which you will see in my left sidebar as a link to my West Florida pages because it was the flag of the Republic of West Florida which was eliminated at the insistence of Alabama, Mississippi & Louisiana – so much for states’ rights and limited action by the federal government.
Florida initially used the naval ensign of the Republic of Texas for Confederate troops, but changed later.
The flags for the Army of Northern Virginia, and the Army of Tennessee were only used to mark the headquarters. Individual regiments had their own distinct flags, and carried their state flags. Individuals corps had their own separate flags that were flown at the corps headquarters. The only common flag that the troops of any state in the Confederacy would have had would have been their individual state flag for that period.
As the Confederacy progressed towards its logical end, however, the vast majority of those unit flags became riffs upon the Army of Northern Virginia battle flag. Maybe with a different shape, maybe with their state logos on it (e.g. S.C. battle flags invariably had those bloody palmetto trees on it), but still. Part of this was because for a long time Lee’s army was the only one that seemed to win battles — the West was a long litany of disaster — so everybody wanted to be like the winner, so to speak. That’s what happened to the Army of Tennessee’s original flag, after all.
I don’t know why the Confederate Congress never just gave up and adopted the AoNV battle flag as the “official” flag of the Confederacy. Every flag design they created as their “official” flag was a disaster. The original Stars’n’Bars was too close to the US flag and too easy to confuse when flown by units or ships, the second “Stainless Banner” was ridiculously close to being a surrender flag. And the final Confederate flag was just a mess, most of the few that were made were done by taking existing flags with a square jack and adding a red stripe to them, meaning that virtually nobody ever flew the “official” flag with the jack in the correct rectangular (not square) shape.
Meanwhile, everybody loved that Army of Northern Virginia design… except their Congress, and probably Jefferson Davis, Jefferson Davis being such a cranky contrary person he hated everything that anybody else loved.
The fact that the KKK adopted a variant on the Army of Northern Virginia design as their “official” flag after the war, and made it known as the “Confederate flag” even though it wasn’t, is just a final sad commentary for how lame the “official” Confederate flags really were….
The KKK and other organizations were founded in Tennessee by veterans of the Army of Tennessee, which is why they adopted that flag.
Yep, but the flag the KKK adopted had been flown by the Army of Tennessee for less than a year, and they changed its dimensions so that regular flag makers could be contracted to make it. The original battle flag of the Army of Tennessee was a red cross with white stars on it (a regular cross, like the Christian cross), on a blue field. They didn’t adopt their variation upon the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia until after Sherman kicked them out of Tennessee at the Battle of Chattanooga, and General Joseph E. Johnston was hastily recalled and put back in charge of the demoralized remnant of that army. That was in early 1864, and one of the things Johnston brought was Lee’s battle flag. Lee was the only Confederate general who’d regularly won battles, so maybe the soldiers would accept that some of that would rub off on them by adopting a similar flag. At least that was Johnston’s thinking, and given that he was one of the few Confederate generals who was consistently right, he probably was right about its effect on the morale of the army.
In any event, needless to say, this flag never flew on any flagstaff anywhere — it was hand-carried into battle, not raised over anybody’s capitol. It’s just hilarious to me that the Confederate government was so lame they couldn’t even adopt a clearly popular flag as their national flag out of outrage that it had been improvised by a general on the field, not by them.
Actually, Johnston was the first commander and the designer of the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee took over when Johnston was sidelined early on. When Johnston was sent to command the Army of Tennessee he requested copies of the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia from the Atlanta depot, and they delivered the rectangular version. Johnston liked square flags because they used less material and were easier to make. He specified the red background and saltire cross to avoid any confusi0n with the British flag as there was hope of UK backing for the Confederacy.
Regardless, actual combat units carried their regimental flags and state flags. Army and Confederate flags were only used by headquarters. Corps commanders had their own flags, and used them instead of the Army flags.
Flags really were battle signals, and no one was going waste more than two people to carry flags, and some only used their regimental flag.