The Fayetteville Observer, which initially published an article whitewashing Julian Bond’s incendiary speech at Fayetteville State University such that it didn’t sound controversial in the slightest, has now published a follow-up and made available an MP3 file of the speech in response to the controversy over said speech’s contents. (My previous posts can be found here and here.)
The article makes clear that the truth, unsurprisingly, lies somewhere in between the claims of Bond’s detractors and his defenders.
On the Nazi/swastika issue, it does appear that the audience members who told WND about Bond’s speech misheard or misunderstood him. He wasn’t comparing Republicans to Nazis; he was making a comment that he makes often about the Confederate flag, which he, for some reason, refers to as a “swastika”:
According to a recording of Bond’s 45-minute speech reviewed by The Fayetteville Observer, he referred to the Confederate flag as a swastika.“Their (Republicans) idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side-by-side,” Bond said in a series of jabs against conservatives, getting applause from the audience of about 900 people.
I’m not sure why the Confederate flag should be called a “swastika,” considering it, um, isn’t a swastika. But I suppose Bond is alluding to this theory that the flag “represents for African-Americans what the swastika represents to Jewish citizens and Jewish people around the world.” So basically, he is evoking Nazi imagery in order to buttress his argument, but he didn’t literally equate Republicans to Nazis. WorldNetDaily’s roving reporters were wrong on that point.
What about the alleged comment that Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell are “tokens”?
According to the tape of the speech, Bond accuses the administration of using Powell and Rice — both of whom are black — “as kinds of human shields against any criticism of their record on civil rights.”
Human shields? So basically, yeah, he is calling them “tokens,” just not in so many words. The audience members accurately summarized Bond’s remarks, they just erred in saying or implying (or perhaps WND erred in hearing or inferring) that “tokens” was a direct quote.
And what about the alleged “Taliban” remark?
He makes a reference to the Taliban in saying that “Republicans draw their most rabid supporters from the Taliban wing of American politics.”
But he doesn’t call judicial nominees the Taliban. He merely calls millions of American citizens the Taliban. I’m not sure how that’s better, but okay.
Look, WorldNetDaily’s report was inaccurate. I’m not going to stoop so low as to defend it as “fake but accurate”; it was inaccurate, period. WND didn’t lie, they didn’t deliberately deceive, but they got inaccurate information from audience members and they ran with it. As a result, the article was wrong.
That said, Bond’s remarks are still beneath contempt. Calling the Confederate flag a “swastika” when it, in fact, isn’t a swastka, cannot sensibly be interpreted as anything other than a not-so-subtle attempt to infuse an otherwise harsh-but-valid criticism of the Bush Administration with irrelevant Nazi imagery. Referring to highly successful African-Americans as “human shields,” simply because they have different political beliefs than you, is really no better than calling them “tokens.” And describing conservative Americans as “the Taliban wing of American politics” is a grave insult, akin to calling American liberals “communists,” or perhaps more analogously, “Stalinists.” It’s one thing if you’re saying it as a joke or a light-hearted remark, but this is a standard part of Bond’s stump speech, and it’s clear that he means it.
Also, the Fayetteville Observer’s initial report of Bond’s speech remains an example of shoddy journalism. The editorial page editor, defending Bond on his blog, says, “There is no question that Bond’s speech was a strong piece of advocacy and strongly anti-administration.” But if all you read about Bond’s speech was the Observer’s initial article, you wouldn’t have gotten that impression at all. The article said the speech “was interrupted several times by applause as he jabbed at the Bush administration,” but the only example cited is the comparatively tame “We have a president who talks like a populist and governs for the privileged.” The “Taliban,” “human shields” and “swastika” comments, all of which are far more controversial, weren’t mentioned.
So, what have we learned here?
1. WorldNetDaily isn’t the most reliable news source out there. They don’t make sh*t up, but they don’t have the same stringent rules about sourcing that some other news organizations have, so they’re more liable to get details wrong as a result of misstatements by their sources. And, like so many journalists — conservative and liberal, mainstream and “alternative,” blogs and newspapers alike — they are more liable to run with a poorly sourced report when it happens to comport with their preconceived notions.
2. The Fayetteville Observer isn’t the most reliable news source out there, either. A national (liberal) figure can make highly controversial remarks at a speech in Fayetteville, and yet those remarks may get left out of an Observer report about the speech, in favor of a blandly positive summary that makes a firebrand sound like a statesman.
3. Julian Bond doesn’t directly equate Republicans with Nazis. He’s far too clever for that. He references Nazi imagery in such a way that many listeners will inevitably associate Republicans with Nazis, but that association can’t be traced directly to Bond because he was only talking about the Confederate, uh, “swastika.”
4. Julian Bond doesn’t think very highly of Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell. Instead of judging them by the content of their character, he sees only their skin color. He can’t wrap his mind around the notion that maybe, just maybe, the Bush Administration hired them because of their immense personal accomplishments. Instead, he believes they are nothing but “human shields” who have been appointed because of their race in order to cover the administration’s tracks on racial issues and make it look diverse. In other words, tokens.
5. Julian Bond thinks it’s okay to compare principled Americans with whom he disagrees (conservatives) with a brutal tyrannical regime that committed wanton violence in the name of religion, subjugated women and minorities, and sponsored terrorism against the United States.
I think that about covers it.
UPDATE: Welcome (again), InstaPundit readers!
As I said last time… if you recognize my name but can’t quite place it… I’m that Katrina guy. Welcome to the Irish Trojan’s blog. Please have a look around!
Anyway, back on topic… David Crisp, who commented on my first post about Julian Bond, is criticizing me — gently — over on his blog:
[The controversy] interests me only because of the speed with which certain elements of the blogosphere jump to factual conclusions that match their prejudices, especially when an opportunity presents itself to trash mainstream media. If there is anything that reporters (and someday bloggers?) ought to know, it is that truth rarely breaks down in such simple terms.
I definitely agree with the latter point, as I imply above (”the truth, unsurprisingly, lies somewhere in between”). And perhaps I should have been more careful. But in my defense, I’m not sure it’s fair to say that I “jump[ed] to factual conclusions that match [my] prejudices.”
For one thing, I don’t have some sort of virulent anti-liberal prejudice; I’m actually a Democrat, albeit a Lieberman-esque one. My “prejudice” is anti-idiotarian, not anti-liberal. (To the extent that I sometimes get more upset about idiotic liberals than about equally idiotic conservatives, it’s only because liberal idiots make me, as a Democrat, look bad, and hurt my party’s chances of doing well in elections.) But anyway, sure, I’ll admit that I am more predisposed to believe bad things about people whose comments strongly indicate they are idiotarians — which Bond’s still do, IMHO, even with the corrections noted above. You can’t, in all seriousness, call millions of honest and decent Americans with whom you (and I!) disagree a “Taliban wing” and escape the “idiotarian” label, in my book.
Anyway, as for “jumping to conclusions”… I actually wrote out an even more blistering rebuke of Bond the day before publishing my initial post, immediately after reading the WND article, but decided not to publish it until I’d found some sort of further confirmation. Only after I found independent sources confirming that he’d made similar remarks at another event did I feel comfortable that the WND article was sufficiently credible to blog about it. And even then, I did very explicitly point out WND’s status as a partisan, right-wing publication, thus giving my readers the information they needed to judge for themselves. So while I was, to some extent, burned by WND’s mistakes, I don’t think I was being irresponsible by posting about the article. And I stand by my conclusions about Bond and the media. The “Taliban” remark alone is enough to justify my conclusions about Bond, and the more I think about the “Confederate swastika” remark, the more I’m convinced that the only reason he would use that locution is to subliminally associate the Republican Party with Nazis. And it absolutely is bad journalism not to report on Bond’s more inflammatory remarks, even though they’re not quite as inflammatory as originally reported.
Oh, one last thing. I forgot to link to Opinion Journal’s most recent discussion of this issue. They apparently wrote it prior to reading the latest Fayetteville Observer article, so some of the discussion is outdated by the new information. I assume they’ll have more to say about the matter this afternoon.
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February 6th, 2006 at 9:48:14 pm
Julian Bond doesn’t think very highly of Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell. Instead of judging them by the content of their character, he sees only their skin color. He can’t wrap his mind around the notion that maybe, just maybe, the Bush Administration hired them because of their immense personal accomplishments. Instead, he believes they are nothing but “human shields” who have been appointed because of their race in order to cover the administration’s tracks on racial issues and make it look diverse. In other words, tokens.
This is precisely why I am dying for Condi to run for president. Her nomination would absolutely dash the Democratic clutch on the black voter (Democrats virtually cannot win a national election with less than 85% of the high-turnout black vote) and render Julian Bond and the left-wing NAACP totally irrelevant.
February 6th, 2006 at 9:54:32 pm
I also think it is dumb to equate the Confederate flag with the swastika, by any reasoning but particularly Bond’s. The trio of evils of slavery, segregation, and discrimination existed under the Stars and Stripes, it existed under the state flags before and after the brief Confederacy, and it existed not because of a political order, but because of an attitude among white Americans. It existed north and south and west of the Mason-Dixon line.
It’s easy to equate slavery with the Confederacy, but secession had both everything to do with and nothing to do with slavery. The hundreds of thousands of poor Southern whites who died in the Civil War did not own slaves and would never have been able to afford slaves. The whites of the Union they fought and died with on the battlefields had no more tender attitudes towards blacks than did their Southern brothers.
The Confederate flag represents a lot of things to different people, depending on how you want to look at it, but it is definitely not comparable to the swastika. It’s a fundamental part of American history, and I personally have no problem with the Confederate flag flying alongside the state and American flags in Southern capitals. The flag should stir emotions–sobering, reflective emotions–about what it means to be an American, and the divisions and bloodshed our nation went through to become what it is today.
February 6th, 2006 at 10:32:16 pm
Andrew, I agree with most of what you said; you are factually correct. However, the Confederate flag to many people in this country represents a time and part of our history that is as bad as the holocaust and that revering it now would be like flying the German flag next to a Nazi flag. Right or wrong it is taken to represent that which is slavery, that which is forced migrations, that which is jim crow, that which is a genocide of native peoples, everything that is bad about this nations past. A part of history a lot of people would rather shove into a drawer and a part of history a lot of people would rather not have flown as a banner. To a certain extent your comment is like saying, well the swastika is part of German history, so why not fly it.
February 6th, 2006 at 10:39:42 pm
What Bond said is more objectionable than what he was alleged to have said. As I wrote before, it is puerile to refer to the “Taliban wing of the Republican Party” since it was under Bush and Rumsfeld’s leadership that our armed forces smashed the Taliban. So now the Taliban aren’t Republicans, they’re people who are attracted to the GOP, not the GOP as such . . . so now we have a person who does not even have the courage to state plainly the convictions he makes clear, only now not in so many words.
February 6th, 2006 at 10:44:01 pm
Andrew–in one breath you say that the Confederate falg means many things to many people–in the next you claim that it is definately not comparable to the swastika. Please. You were right in your first breath–it means a lot of things. One of those things it means to some people is the equivalent of the swastika. They’re entitled to that belief in the same way that southern whites are entitled to believe the flag represents states rights.
Now, I really don’t like historical analogies, so I think it’s very weak and unfair for Bond to use the term swastika in the mannerin which he did. The NAACP should not lessen the moral crime of slavery simply by comparing it to something else…it need not be compared to anything. It was what it was…morally bankrupt.
You make a good point that slavery flourished under the stars and stripes far longer than it did under the stars and bars, but don’t forget: southern whites used the flag as a symbol of protest AGAINST de-segregation. When innocent black children attempted to integrate into white schools, what did they see as they walked through the doors? Dozens of people waving the southern cross.
I agree that there is an element of sacredness to the Confederate flag…men defending their families and their beliefs against what they felt was agression died to protect the Confederate flag while defending against invasion–they didn’t die for slavery, they died for their homes and comrades in arms homes.
Too bad their ancestors tarnished what honor the flag had during Klan rallies and protests against civil rights.
When black citizens feel rightly threatened and hurt by the immage that has come to represent southern white oppression during the era of the civil rights movement, they should not have it flying over their state capitol.
February 6th, 2006 at 10:44:39 pm
However, the Confederate flag to many people in this country represents a time and part of our history that is as bad as the holocaust and that revering it now would be like flying the German flag next to a Nazi flag. Right or wrong it is taken to represent that which is slavery, that which is forced migrations, that which is jim crow, that which is a genocide of native peoples, everything that is bad about this nations past.
And that is precisely the problem, because that view is factually incorrect. Slavery existed outside the South. Jim Crow and segregation wasn’t just a Southern problem. The Confederacy had nothing to do with a perceived genocide of Native Americans, and it had nothing to do with the slave trade, which ended well before the Civil War. The second we start allowing peoples’ misperceptions about history color how we regard historical flags, is the second we cede history to the revisionists and their political agendas.
The swastika, by contrast, does represent holocaust and genocide. It does represent fascism and dictatorship. It does represent warmongering and Aryan ideology. The Confederate flag represents none of those things. Germans had no choice but to die for a dictator and a flag they didn’t necessarily agree with, though they may at first have bought into his pogroms and German nationalism. Southerners and Americans, however, fought out of loyalty to that flag, because of what they believed it meant to be an American. Southerners didn’t die on the battlefield because they wanted to keep and own slaves, by and large they died because they thought their liberties to decide for themselves were being taken away from them. Sure, the wealthy plantation owners had a lot to gain from keeping slavery, but that’s not how it was sold to the Americans who died in that war.
The swastika and what it represents in German and world history is obvious: pure evil. What the Confederate flag represents is far more complicated: pride, loss, evil, revenge, bloodshed, slavery, and yes, liberty and freedom. The meanings woven into the Confederate flag are far too complex to let some race-baiting blacks like Julian Bond, or some moronic neo-Nazi separatists like the KKK, assign a meaning to that flag for the rest of America.
February 6th, 2006 at 10:48:33 pm
Andrew, you’re still ignoring the significance the flag played during the civil rights era…the era closest to black America’s heart
February 6th, 2006 at 10:51:50 pm
You make a good point that slavery flourished under the stars and stripes far longer than it did under the stars and bars, but don’t forget: southern whites used the flag as a symbol of protest AGAINST de-segregation. When innocent black children attempted to integrate into white schools, what did they see as they walked through the doors? Dozens of people waving the southern cross.
That may have been what you remember from the TV images, but racism and segregation existed and flourished in every “Northern” city. Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Boston–Brown v. Board was necessary in all these instances. Yes, your right, 1960s-era Southerners tarnished the blood of their ancestors when they wove that flag, but the evils they were trying to protect and keep in place were far from limited to the old Confederate South. It is plainly stupid, IMO, for a black from St. Louis or Chicago or Detroit or Boston to think racism and segregation dies or lives with the memory of the Confederate flag. Blacks from the North suffered aplenty under the Stars and Stripes Forever. Reconciling blacks to the promise of America and her flag is a larger and far more difficult project than simply pissing on the Confederate flag and throwing it in the dustbin of history alongside the flag of the Third Reich.
February 6th, 2006 at 10:53:25 pm
Andrew, we always have a choice. We may not like our choice, we may not like the options, we always have a choice.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:01:20 pm
The Confederate flag represented a nation, however short lived, whose primary purpose was to continue keeping black men and women as slaves. Did other nations have legal slavery? Yes, but were they formed based primarily on being able to enslave others? No.
Whatever other meanings might exist, that is still the single primary reason.
Given that the primary conotation of that emblem is that of treating one group as less than human and thats precisely what the Nazi’s did as well, I think the comparison has some merit.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:02:48 pm
When black citizens feel rightly threatened and hurt by the immage that has come to represent southern white oppression during the era of the civil rights movement, they should not have it flying over their state capitol
If that is the reason why a flag should not be flown, then what would your response be to the British flag. Do the Irish, Indians and Zulus have a right to ask the British government to not use the flag? I seem to remember numerous trangressions against those ethnic groups during the “Empire’s” heyday.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:04:26 pm
The trouble, David, is that that is a marginal mischaracterization of the civil war. Slavery is not all the war was about by a long shot. It was about a number of fundamental differences in political philosophy in the north and south. And it is a fundamental divide which still exists.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:20:41 pm
I have to side with Dane on this one, David. Frankly, I’m surprised you would take such a position that the single primary reason for the existence of the Confederacy was the right to keep slaves. Even if we were to pick out a single primary reason for why the South tried to break away, it wouldn’t be the right to keep slaves. Far more important to far more people in the South was the question of the supremacy of the state vs the federal government, and whether states had the right to terminate their relationship with the Union with which they no longer wished to be affiliated. Beyond that, you have the massive cultural differences between a primarily agrarian South and an industrial North, which was compounded of course by slavery–the plantation system required the economics of very cheap labor in order to support the luxury of the very elite. Slavery was certainly a part of the divide, and an important one at that, but the single primary reason? No. That’s too simplistic of a view of history.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:30:15 pm
Here’s a causus belli analogy: Slavery is to the Civil War what WMDs are to the Iraq War.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:31:20 pm
Andrew, I honestly don’t see what relevance northern segregation has to do with anything. People certainly waved Confederate flags in my home state of Illinois, even though our state fought for union.
I’m not denying that the Civil War is misunderstood–look no further than David’s comment that the Confederacy existed simply for the continuation of slavery. That claim is absurd and totally without merit.
But I don’t see what that has to do with the issue at hand. Does the Confederate flag reasonably represent legitimate values? Yes it does. Does it also reasonably represent legitimate racism, in the sense that it served as the visual rallying symbol for the opposition of civil rights? Absolutely.
As long as the flag was widely and unambiguously used as a symbol to oppose civil rights, I think it is a shame that state capitols continue to fly the flag in disregard for their black citizens’ quite reasonable sensitivity.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:37:15 pm
Bill, your question is ridiculous. Of course foreigners have no right to ask a sovereign nation not to wave its national banner.
This is a situation in which a large number of southern citizens (South Carolina citizens, for example) feel insulted by a flag that is not their state flag, flying over the capitol building, in disregard of their reasonable sensitivity to the flag.
If a large group of citizens have a reasonable beef with the flag, I don’t think it shows respect/manners/politeness/civility to continue flying the flag for no reason other than to trumpet “states rights,” which let’s not forget was the code-word for segregation in the 50’s and 60’s.
For whites, “states rights” is an abstract political position…for blacks, segregation is a very real memory of oppression
February 6th, 2006 at 11:51:07 pm
Here’s a causus belli analogy: Slavery is to the Civil War what WMDs are to the Iraq War.
I’ll handle the obvious comeback: “But the South actually HAD slavery…” :)
February 6th, 2006 at 11:58:50 pm
Also, getting rid of slavery wasn’t what was used to sell the North to go to war in the first place. If it had been, it would’ve been much harder to get states like Maryland to join with the Union forces.
February 7th, 2006 at 12:54:21 am
States rights was certainly the second most argument given, but the only reason it was even an issue was because of the slavery question. If there hadn’t been a push in the north to end slavery and if Lincoln hadn’t been elected the South wouldn’t have seceded. Again, the primary reason the Confederacy formed was because of slavery. Not the only reason, just the primary one.
February 7th, 2006 at 1:00:21 am
Andrew, you’ve obviously never lived in the south. The state of Georgia changed the state flag to the confederate flag in the 1950s in response to desegregation. It was supposed to be a slap in the face to the federal government. Also, the Republican party still uses the southern strategy. In his race against Roy Barnes, current governor Sonny Purdue won election by promising to change the flag back to the confederate flag. This kind of race baiting is why the confederate flag has a negative conotation to black people in the south.
Don’t get me wrong. I get tired of northernors equating the civil war as a war against slavery. The facts are that Grant kept his slaves until after the war because the Emancipation Proclamation only freed southern slaves. Also the majority of soldiers in the south were in many ways poorer than slaves. All of this does not change the fact that the confederate flag was later used to divide people by race. The confederate flag is used by Republicans recently and southern democrats traditionally to stir up racial tensions in a similar way to the way that the swastika was used to stir up bigotry against jews.
February 7th, 2006 at 1:03:07 am
Obviously the swastika as a symbol long predates not only the Nazis’ 20th-century expropriation of it for their own demonic ends, but the iconographically-unrelated 19th-century Stars & Bars battle flag as well.
Coincidentally, however, if the CSA was not Quite a fascist State that preceded formal fascist Theory, Mississippi in the 1960’s definitely Was one occuring Subsequent to said Formulation. / Trust me on this, fellers. The vaguely-comparable Emblematic similarity is Random; but the politicoInfrastructural analogies are Not.
February 7th, 2006 at 1:11:49 am
Southern Democrat, I am not going to weigh in on the question of whether the Confederate flag is good or bad; I probably agree more with you than with Andrew, but I’m not really well-informed about it, so I’m not going to get involved in that debate. HOWEVER, I just want to point out that there is a flaw in your logic. As evidence of the Republican Party’s “race-baiting,” you point out that Sonny Purdue “won election by promising to change the flag back to the confederate flag.” But, on the face of it, that proves nothing. It begs the question, really. WHY did he promise to change the flag back to the confederate flag? Because of tradition, states rights, etc.? Or because of race? No doubt, you’ll say “because of race,” and maybe you’re right. But I seriously doubt that Purdue himself said it was because of race (correct me if I’m wrong). More likely, he said it was because of other reasons. Your argument therefore depends on the premise that he was being dishonest about his motives, and was in reality race-baiting. Since what you’re trying to prove is that the Republicans engage in race-baiting behavior, you shouldn’t premise your proof on the assumption that race-baiting is occurring. Evidence is worthless if it’s premised on the very conclusion that you are trying to prove.
February 7th, 2006 at 1:34:25 am
Mike, Maryland never did join the north in the war effort. Marylanders fought on both sides of the war, but the state itself remained neutral. Interestingly, the Maryland legislature was most likely going to vote for secession, but ‘ol honest Abe imprisoned the legislature’s secesh ring-leaders and effectively shut-down the vote.
But you’re right–ending slavery certainly was not the battle-cry of the north. If it had been, there wouldn’t have been much of a union army. Indeed, the union most assuredly would have seen far fewer Irishmen in blue suits. (they deserted in droves with the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation)
February 7th, 2006 at 1:50:09 am
I’m basing it on the fact that the “Let us Choose… Sonny Perdue” signs were placed strictly in rural areas. They were not placed in the Atlanta suburbs where the party’s other base lives. I’m also basing it on the GOP admitted that it used the southern strategy in the past. That strategy is alive and well. From starting rumors about McCain’s black baby to making a campaign stop at the until recently openly racist Bob Jones University. These actions are intended to send a message to a certain political base. If you want me to prove the subjective intent of Sonny Perdue, you are correct that I can’t, but I will point out some irony. Sonny Perdue was elected because of the confederate flag and then he failed to get the flag changed back to the confederate flag. Now there are signs in rural GA that say “Sonny Lied” and display the confederate flag. Live by the idiot, die by the idiot.
February 7th, 2006 at 4:29:12 am
Mike, dcl, Andrew, et. al.
To say that slavery was the only reason for the civil war; that would indeed be ridiculous. To say that all other reasons were trivial and inconsequential; that also would go way to far. But to say that slavery was the primary cause? I think that actually hits pretty close to the mark. Slavery, I would argue, was at a very minimum the necessary cause of the war. Without that one polarizing issue, the two sides would likely have resolved their differences peacefully.
Mike says: Even if we were to pick out a single primary reason for why the South tried to break away, it wouldn’t be the right to keep slaves. Far more important to far more people in the South was the question of the supremacy of the state vs the federal government, and whether states had the right to terminate their relationship with the Union with which they no longer wished to be affiliated. This may accurately reflect the view of the average southerner, but his view is actually of little importance when considering the Causes of the war. For the aristocratic elites who formed the government of the Confederacy, slavery was the important issue. True, they framed their argument as a matter of State’s Rights. But the State’s Right they wanted most to protect, far more than any other, was the right to hold slaves (and think on the staggering irony of claiming that “right” in the name of freedom.) Just read the various Declaration[s] of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of… South Carolina, Georgia, Mississipi, and Texas. Then try to argue that maintaining the institution of slavery was not their primary goal. By their own words are they damned. (For the states which entered the Confederacy late, such as Virginia, it might plausibly be argued that they entered more out of a sense of solidarity than conviction.)
Now, I freely concede the motivations of the North were quite different. If it’s correct to say that for the South the war was mainly about slavery, it’s equally correct to say that for the North it was mainly not about slavery. At least not at first. But the abolition movement was primarily a northern phenomenon, and Lincoln did, after all, sign the Emancipation Proclamation. He did so as a political and strategic move, but by the end of the war he had come to see it as both politicaly useful and profoundly moral.
My view on the Confederate flag is this. Let us concede that those who wish to fly it do so for varied reasons, most of which have nothing to do with racism. Let us further concede that the reasons for the Civil War were complicated, and had to do with much more than just slavery. The flag nevertheless remains the symbol of the Confederate government. That government wished to secede from the Union based, in significant measure, on it’s political leaders’ desire to continue to hold human beings as personal property. Flying its flag ought to be offensive to all Americans.
February 7th, 2006 at 4:31:30 am
If you can’t see how the Confederate flag– a symbol clearly drenched in the history of slavery, lynchings, denial of basic human rights, etc., for African Americans– can be compared to the nazi Swastika……
February 7th, 2006 at 4:45:56 am
Regarding Virginia, it should be noted that in their “ORDINANCE to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United State of America by the State of Virginia,” they make a point of referring to the North’s “oppresion of the Southern slave-holding States.” (emphasis mine)
February 7th, 2006 at 4:48:41 am
For the record, the first Anonymous was not me. The second was.
February 7th, 2006 at 4:59:50 am
If you can’t see how the Confederate flag– a symbol clearly drenched in the history of slavery, lynchings, denial of basic human rights, etc., for African Americans– can be compared to the nazi Swastika……
Compared to the swastika? Sure.
Directly equated with the swastika? Uh… not so sure about that one.
Described as a swastika? Um, no.
The difference between comparing the swastika with the Confederate flag, and calling the Confederate flag a swastika, is like the difference between saying, “Reggie Bush runs like Gale Sayers” and saying “Gale Sayers won the 2005 Heisman Trophy.”
February 7th, 2006 at 6:01:30 am
So many issues, so much time to waste…
I listened to the speech twie and I heard a fairly nuanced critique of the Bush Adminstration, linking the current Administration and its Neo Con political currents with some of the darker aspects of American History; the most salient point of this for me was that we have had real civil rights legislation in this country for a mere 40 years, which is a far shorter time than we’ve had slavery, lynchings, institutionalized race discrimination, etc.
I heard some thngs that people could take offense at. But did I hear the speech of a “bigot” as Brendan claimed initially in his first post on this topic?
No.
And when Bond was refering to the “Taliban wing” I certainly did not take it to mean he was refering to MILLIONS of Americans. He was in most likelihood referring to the most conservative parts of the Republican Party as represented those politicians at the top. People like Grover Norquist, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Ralph Reed, etc.
February 7th, 2006 at 8:48:34 am
“…ending slavery certainly was not the battle-cry of the north. If it had been, there wouldn’t have been much of a union army. Indeed, the union most assuredly would have seen far fewer Irishmen in blue suits. (they deserted in droves with the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation)”
Sad but True, thebeef. / Driven by racial hatred and economic fear, the disgraceful & treasonous Irish uprising of July 1863 in New York City stands to this day as the worst race riot in the nation’s history.
February 7th, 2006 at 8:55:31 am
As Mark Steyn so eloquently put it…
“One day the British foreign secretary will wake up and discover that, in practice, there’s very little difference between living under Exquisitely Refined Multicultural Sensitivity and Sharia. As a famously sensitive Dane once put it, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”"
Julian Bond is just another “race warrior” practicing the same shite the “Moslems” are doing with their “Cartoon Jihad”.
It is time to let Political Correctness and “Offensensitivity” to die and be tossed on the scrappile of history along with Marxism, Maoism, Communism and the Hippie movement.
February 7th, 2006 at 8:59:38 am
Thanks for the report on Bond’s talk. As a Rabid Republican I jump on the bad info given. Thanks for setting the record straight.
Tom Johnson
Baldwin Park, California
February 7th, 2006 at 9:12:52 am
The symbol on the Confederate battle flag is St. Andrew’s Cross. According to tradition, St. Andrew, the Apostle, was crucified on a “X” shaped cross. This cross appears on the Scottish national flag, and also appears in the Union Jack. The presence of this cross on the Confederate flag is probably an echo of the large Scots-Irish/Celtic element in the ante-bellum South.
February 7th, 2006 at 9:14:49 am
Lincoln’s views of slavery definitely evolved. But before he was assasinated he definitely saw ending slavery as a goal of the Civil War.
February 7th, 2006 at 9:17:11 am
Just so you know, I was reading along in your article, thinking this might be a good blog to keep an eye on, until I came to the gratuitous obscenity. I stopped and will not come back.
February 7th, 2006 at 9:37:44 am
“Here’s a causus belli analogy: Slavery is to the Civil War what WMDs are to the Iraq War.”
“I’ll handle the obvious comeback: “But the South actually HAD slavery…” :)”
Yeah, I thought about that about 5 seconds after I posted last night. True dat, but the analogy still holds to the proposition for which it was offered: Causes of wars are typically complicated, not simple (Exhibit B: WWI didn’t really start simply because the Austrian Arch-Duke was assassinated in Sarajevo).
February 7th, 2006 at 9:51:10 am
Okay, so he’s a slippery demagogue instead of a rabid one.
Nice to know he learned that from some of the great Southern politicians who went before him, like Wallace, Bilbo, Tom Watson, etc.
February 7th, 2006 at 9:51:44 am
gratuitous obscenity
You mean “sh*t”? Umm, well, sorry you were offended. But if you’re offended by asterisked-out, self-censored obscenity, then yeah, this blog probably isn’t for you. I sometimes post about boobies, too, so beware.
February 7th, 2006 at 9:54:13 am
The defense of the Confederate flag as representing so much more than slavery would make sense if the stars and bars had been flown continuously since 1865. (In fact, most states and army units flew their own flags in the war, not the Confederate flag.) But the historical reality is that the flag was brought back from obscurity and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s as a flag of white resistance to civil rights and the federal government. It IS the flag of slavery and segregation, not of the South’s total history and heritage.
February 7th, 2006 at 10:01:00 am
It should be noted that what we call the Confederate flag was the Confederate BATTLE flag. It’s a call to violence.
February 7th, 2006 at 10:01:10 am
I’m going to issue a concurrence with TheBeef, Aaron, and Southern Democrat on this one; together they have hit on the key points of the deeply complex issues surrounding that period in our nation’s history.
Brendan, I know you’ve never lived in The South, I’ve barley lived in The South hailing from The Great State of Northern Virginia, be that as it may, it is very important to recognize that in The South the Confederate flag is not just a flag from a passed war, there is a whole heck of a lot more to it than that — and that is something that is difficult to fully appreciate unless you’ve lived in The South — and it is difficult to appreciate that there are a lot of things people “say” without actually stating it overtly.
Okay, this is an idea that just came into my head. I’ve no idea if it really makes sense or not, but is it possible, (not what he meant, just possible) that Bond was using the term swastika in a generic way? Such as when someone asks for a Kleenex when they mean a tissue, or even a Puffs tissue? What I mean is, was he using the noun to reefer to a class of things that are racist images as opposed to specifically meaning the Nazi Flag - even though that is clearly what he meant to evoke rhetorically. Another example, FedExing something even when you send it UPS, or Xeroxing something even when you use a Canon copier. You are evoking something rhetorically, even when it is not quite what you mean.
February 7th, 2006 at 10:26:49 am
Dane, you seem to think that I’ve taken a position on the Confederate flag issue, and whether it’s good, bad or indifferent. I haven’t. All I’ve said is that it’s not the same thing as the Nazi swastika. Insofar as I’ve taken a position at all on the Confederate flag debate, I said that I probably pretty much agree with Southern Democrat, with the proviso that I don’t consider myself terribly well-informed about the issue.
As for the idea that he was using “swastika” as a generic term… the reason terms like “FedEx,” “Kleenex,” etc. are considered reasonable to use in that manner is because that is a common usage. On the other hand, Google “confederate swastika” and what you’ll find is a whole bunch of Julian Bond quotes. It is his locution, not a common usage. And anyway, you concede the crucial point when you say “even though [the Nazi flag] is clearly what he meant to evoke rhetorically.” The question is WHY did he mean to evoke the Nazi flag? And the obvious answer is, he wants to associate Republicans with Nazis, but in a slippery, quasi-subliminal manner that he can’t really be called to account for. It’s a cheap rhetorical trick, not worthy of respect.
February 7th, 2006 at 10:33:14 am
Well, I agree this blog needs more boobies not less.
February 7th, 2006 at 10:37:29 am
He clearly wasn’t trying to associate ALL Republicans with Nazis…He was trying to associate the particular Nazi…er….I mean Republican politicians who have arisen in America’s political scene today: the pro-militarism, anti-social spending, pro-corporate, pro-rich, socially conservative, etc. Republicans…ultra nationalists with a rabid pro-militarism and pro-corporate bent…..
I mean the speech was clearly about Bush and others of his and Cheney’s ilk….
February 7th, 2006 at 10:45:18 am
And that makes it okay?
February 7th, 2006 at 10:46:13 am
Mouse,
It must be just dumb luck I guess, but not one of the Republicans I know fits your description.
February 7th, 2006 at 10:46:57 am
A good recent book on the vexed question of the causes of the Civil War is “Apostles of Disunion: southern secession commissioners and the causes of the Civil War” by Charles B. Dew, University Press of Virginia, 2001. Dew studied the records of the state conventions that voted for secession. What he found (short version) was that those who fought for secession did so because they feared that Lincoln and the Republicans would take their slaves. Lofty rhetoric about states rights was a product of Lost Cause romanticism decades after the war was over.
thebeef at 2/7 12:39 AM states that “droves” of Irishmen deserted from the Union ranks after the Emancipation Proclamation. Some sources and numbers for this claim, please?
February 7th, 2006 at 10:54:07 am
*does not find boobies offensive in any way, except the utter lack thereof, of course*
February 7th, 2006 at 10:58:54 am
Mama, are you from the south?
JFM, there is, for sure, lost cause romanticism about the Civil War…
February 7th, 2006 at 11:19:47 am
John, I’m currently at school, so I don’t have my books with me. I certainly wasn’t suggesting that the Irish abandoned the war effort–simply that the Irish felt particularly loathsome over the prospect of fighting to free slaves, and they most assuredly did leave the fight in relatively large numbers. (I can’t think of the lyrics off the top of my head–but there are a number of Irish diddy’s complaining of taking a bullet for the “naygers”)
This is hardly surprising considering the Democratic rhetoric in the north. Vallandingham and his “Peace Democrats” were always sure to let the immigrants know (particularly the Irish), that with black freedome would follow Irish-slavery, in which immigrant men would be forced to work at absurdly low rates to compete with the freed slaves.
If you read the newspapers circulating in New York City at the time, it’s quite obvious that the Irish feared emancipation. And as Joe has pointed out, the “Riot Week” of july 1863 was a horrific exposition of racial/political/social tensions–with the black population paying the highest price. (Although the Irish paid a pretty hefty price themselves–they don’t put down riots today like they used to, with grape-shot)
Also, look at the difficulties Meagher’s Irish Brigade had re-filling its ranks after emancipation…that’s no coincidence
February 7th, 2006 at 11:42:56 am
I’m not a blogger, so maybe I’m illegal here, but I would like to comment.
I’m a white female Democrat, socially “liberal,” old enough at least to be your mom, so, granted, I’m looking at this interesting controversy over a longer haul than you may be, but here goes anyway!
You would probably have had to be there in the fifties and sixties to see the likeness between Nazis and Southern hatred and readiness to do violence to blacks and white civil rights workers. Bombings, lynchings, imprisonment, destruction of property, all were expected and excused by those in power. Those of us who saw it happening get Bond’s reference to the “swastika” viscerally if not literally. Likewise, we saw the “kill the N—–s” Dixie Democrats morph into Dixie Republicans without missing a beat, changing party to keep company with the anti-civil rights Republicans of that time. (Not all Republicans were opposed to civil rights, but a large segment were certainly fellow travelers with the Southern good old boys who left the Democratic Party because it was too “liberal.”)
As for the Taliban analogy, there are certain factions, from the skinheads who fly the Confederate flag tribally to some strands of the religious right, who would, if they could, enforce a stringent orthodoxy by imposing what they consider “Christianity” upon all residents of the country. Individual belief systems which do not agree with theirs would be quashed by “Christian” prayers, the Ten Commandments (their interpretation thereof), and restrictions on birth control, abortion, and opportunities for women and minorities. Absolute orthodoxy and theocracy are not compatible with democracy, as our founders knew well from their European roots.
Julian Bond may have been referencing these catchwords imprecisely, as all metaphors tend to do, but perhaps seeing the dangers from a longer perspective than do most of your readers, he felt he had to use these terms to get the attention of a wider audience. (As he apparently did!) However, the points he makes are valid warnings to those who don’t know or consider history. The forces in the human heart, symbolized by the Nazis and Taliban, are not limited to one time and place.
February 7th, 2006 at 12:14:30 pm
Joe Mama,
That’s my point exactly.
Bond isn’t talking about the “average” Republican working class or Middle Class Republicans.
He’s talking about the Super Wealthy Ultra Conservative Republicans at the very top of our social pile who make policy decisions and create the policy that guides the party.
And that was what Bond meant by a President who uses “populist rhetoric” but really serves the “super wealthy,” or whatever Bond used exactly in his speech.
Bush and his Republican handlers do an excellent job of using this kind of “we’re pulling for the little guy” rhetoric as they slash taxes for the wealthy and boost spending for the military.
I’m quite sure you don’t know these kinds of Republicans. You don’t run in the same social circles.
February 7th, 2006 at 12:26:19 pm
Brendan
You keep changing issues without ever acknowledging that the other person is actually making a decent point.
You tried to claim he was criticizing “Republicans” and you used the words “millions of Americans.” In my interpretation, he clearly ISN’T criticizing all Republicans. He’s talking about a certain kind of ultra right wing pro-corporate, anti-social spending, and in Bond’s mind racist Republican at the very top of the political machine. They are the Neo Cons.
I’m not sure his use of the word “swastika” is really such a moral failing on his part to describe the people at the very top of this country who used bogus intelligance to lead us into this war.
And since you did not post what I thought was a good article, I’ll post it here because it bolsters the claim that the intelligence was a “hoax.”
Hoax is the word Lawrence Wilkerson used to describe the intelligence Powell presented at the UN.
Lawrence Wilkerson was a paid assistant to Powell during the time in question. He said of the intelligence to pre-war Iraq as hoax: “I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council. How do you think that makes me feel? Thirty-one years in the United States Army and I more or less end my career with that kind of a blot on my record? That’s not a very comforting thing.”
Read the full interview with Wilkerson and check out his credentials at : http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/wilkerson.html
If Bush and his friends lied to lead us to war, although they are not committing genocide, they are little better– morally– than Nazis in my mind.
So yes it’s perfectly fine to use the word “Confederate swastika” in my mind, considering what they are doing and will continue to do to this country. The latest round of social spending cuts are going to really hurt millions of Americans, all the way from needy elderly to college students.
The speech was a well reasoned, impassioned, and thoughtful word of rhetoric.
I still wonder why it’s “bigoted.” Bigot: : a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices
I think Bond’s opinions are supported by solid facts.
February 7th, 2006 at 12:28:22 pm
Sorry, Mouse. Sometimes I confuse the all encompassing rhetoric of Howard “Republicans Have Never Worked A Day In Their Lives” Dean with Julian “Only The Ones At The Top Are Nazis” Bond. My bad.
February 7th, 2006 at 12:42:43 pm
Thanks for your insincere response. I used to be a huge fan of sarcasm.
February 7th, 2006 at 12:44:55 pm
I also grew up in the South (Texas) and as children do, I grew up believing all of the bullsh*t about the Civil War. That it wasn’t about slavery, it was about the Southern Way of Life, and State’s Rights, and the nobility of Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson and quack quack quack.
It’s time for Southerners to grow up about the Confederacy. Dress it up in anyway you choose — “state’s rights”, “irreconcilable differences” — it gets back down to white men wanting to own black people.
I’m a white moderate who doesn’t like the ease with which the race card gets played, but I don’t see one problem with equating the swasitka and the confederate flags.
Both flags were the flags of racists who were willing to kill as many people as it took to stay in power, who were willing work women and children to death, and both were the flags of men who wanted to destroy the United States of America. Both flags represent a systematic destruction of whole peoples. There is no good reason for any citizen to feel anything other than loathing for that flag.
It’s too late now to censor or ban the stars and bars, but it’s a pity our ancestors didn’t get around to it.
February 7th, 2006 at 2:37:36 pm
David Crisp,
To counter your last post on the old Bond link, I do not think that we were willing to take WND at its word and dismissed the MSM as biased right off the bat. In fact, there has been several discussions on this blog about the inaccuracy of blogs in general, and of the big grain of salt we have to read stuff from WND in particular. Brendan took the time to look for other sources, and fortunately you followed through even futher. The Bond post was about several things, one of them being getting to the botton of what actually happened/was said, and not just about crucifying the MSM and/or jumping on the WND wandwagon.
February 7th, 2006 at 2:38:42 pm
(working from most recent to further back in time …)
BadLiberal - the Swastika is NOT a flag … The Swastika is a VERY ancient symbol of Good and Light from cultures that span the entire globe - the Nazis tried to coopt it, and you and everyone else who buys into that are currently supporting the Nazis’ efforts ! And I strongly doubt that that is what you intend to do, even if it’s what you *are* doing …
Mendacious Mouse - you live up to that name par excellence with your comment of 11:31 am and its cited URL …
Here’s a direct quote from the early part of that very interview …
“I can tell you that having been intimately involved in the preparation of Secretary Powell for his five February 2003 presentation at the UN Security Council, neither of those dissents in any fashion or form were registered with me or the Secretary by the DCI, George Tenent, by the DDCI, John McLaughlin, or by any of their many analysts who were in the room with us for those five, six days and nights at the Central Intelligence Agency.
DAVID BRANCACCIO: And they didn’t give you any inkling that–
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Not a bit.
DAVID BRANCACCIO: — there was this debate about some of this information?
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Not a bit. In fact it was presented in the firmest language possible that the mobile biological labs and the sketches we had drawn of them for the Secretary’s presentation were based on the iron clad evidence of multiple sources.
DAVID BRANCACCIO: Maybe they at the most senior level, like you, just didn’t know?
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: I have to believe that. Otherwise I have to believe some rather nefarious things about some fairly highly placed people in the intelligence community and perhaps elsewhere. “
This not only does not support your hysterical “Bush hoax” assertions, it counters them …
READ the entire thing … don’t just cherry-pick what supports your own prejudices …
Later on, yes, he seems to then be supporting the “hoax” perspective, even as he carefully says that the “Secretary” wasn’t complicit … and then the host feeds him the names of Cheney and Rumsfeld …
Now, if we believe all Wilkerson says in that cite, the first part exonerates the White House …
And, if we are not to believe the first part, there is no reason to believe the rest …
Which is it, Mendacious Mouse ?
February 7th, 2006 at 2:43:58 pm
Glenda - good to see fresh words, and a fresh perspective …
I do have a question for you, tho - realising that I am a resident alien and still learning about what went on back then …
“Likewise, we saw the “kill the N—–s” Dixie Democrats morph into Dixie Republicans without missing a beat, changing party to keep company with the anti-civil rights Republicans of that time.”
I was/am under the impression that is was the then Republican Party that supported the Democrat President against the Southern Democrats (including, I believe Robert Byrd - in the Senate since 1958) and it was *only* with Republican support that LBJ’s civil rights legislation got passed …
How does that make the Republicans back then anti-civil-rights and the Democrates back then pro-civil-rights ?
February 7th, 2006 at 4:26:40 pm
Bea,
Fair enough. I don’t want to overgeneralize about bloggers any more than I want bloggers to overgeneralize about the MSM. Again, I follow stories like this only because I have an interest in allegations of MSM bias. And I do think that reporters, like anyone else, deserve some fact-finding before they are dismissed as incompetent or biased.
February 7th, 2006 at 6:15:27 pm
Funny that the NAACP claims to be non-partisan. I wonder whether the IRS would, having heard this highly politicized speech, find sufficient grounds to revoke its tax-exempt status.
February 7th, 2006 at 7:45:36 pm
Sorry Alasdair, but that boat left a long time ago. I seriously doubt that you could go too many places in America with a swastika and have people say “Oh yeah, the ancient Hindu symbol!”
February 7th, 2006 at 9:03:22 pm
BadLiberal - not just Hindu … many north american indian tribes had the swastika as a symbol of Good …
We have a traditional Navaho design rug at home with swastikas on it …
This cite has more information on teh sswastika …
February 7th, 2006 at 10:13:21 pm
I have about as little connection to the South and the Confederate flag as anybody you might find. The closest I ever came to Southern culture was being a huge fan of The Dukes of Hazzard when I was a kid. At the same time though, I was a huge A-Team fan, and Mr. T was my favorite TV character (I wanted a mohawk because of him for the longest time growing up). One side of my family hails from Tory England. The other from Norman France via Quebec and Kennedy Massachusetts (my grandma is a diehard Kennedy-ite–not even Ted can do any wrong by her), and Scotland (among other Western European countries) via Ohio and West Virginia. I was born in Southern California and grew up in very diverse schools with friends of all colors, religions, and creeds.
All that said, I have never had a problem with the Confederate flag. I think it a very historic and deeply moving emblem when put in context of its time. No doubt had I been born thirty years earlier and seen how the Southern segregationists were using the flag, perhaps my perceptions might have been different. But my perceptions of the flag are first and foremost melded by history, not by TV images and the activities of the KKK.
As I said though, I did not grow up in the South, and I did not grow up thirty years before I did, but I have read plenty of Southerners explain that the KKK and the rabid Jim Crow politicians did not very well represent popular opinion on the matter. The claim is that most white Southerners were benignly racist and generally supported the status quo, but were generally opposed to the violence and terrorism of the KKK. What riled them up was, again, the appeals to Northern Agression and the rallying call of states rights and the “Southern Way of Life”. To the extent that the more nuanced of us can distinguish between the benign and passive anti-Semitism of most Arab Muslims (the “Arab street”) and the rabid, violent anti-Semitism of the terrorists, I think at a minimum we can operate similarly with Southern whites.
Going back to history, the Confederate flag represents a key American dilemma: What happens when the right ideology (according to some) is used to ensure the wrong result? There are many eminently reasonable Americans who can legitimately argue that the South’s concept of states’ rights is truer to the Founding Fathers’ vision than what ultimately prevailed in the Civil War. Yet the key impact of that proper Constitutional vision (to some eyes) was to ensure the status quo of slavery, one of the most abominable sins of man. So what does the free-thinking, moral, dedicated American do? Side with states rights’ and slavery; or with unconscionable and/or unconstitutional federal power and ending slavery? Americans, quite reasonably, had differing approaches, and thus the Confederacy was born and brother was set against brother.
In the 1950s, we were asked the question again. Brown v. Board was decided correctly on the merits, but its reasoning and implementation were, by many accounts across the political spectrum, deeply dangerous to American freedom and the separation of powers. So again, what does the conscionable man do: Move to block the implementation of Brown v. Board and civil rights being crammed down the throats of Southern states by the government; or accede to the hoarding and exercising of dangerous power by the federal government because the end result is right? Eminently reasonable people again disagreed. Sen. Barry Goldwater was not racist and had no love for Jim Crow, but he opposed the Civil Rights Act nonetheless out of a ideological devotion to states’ rights. Many other non-Southern conservatives of the time had to wrestle with the same decision.
For the collectivists among us, for the communist-forgiving, government-loving leftists who don’t give a damn about what the Founding Fathers’ vision was and what the Constitution was supposed to mean, these are not core dilemmas but rather simple questions to be scoffed at. No need to chime in, Nun Mouse, I know exactly your position.
But for people like myself, or Sean Vivier, things simply can’t be that simple. To us, the aggrandizement of federal power is an abomination–maybe not as bad as slavery or Jim Crow, but certainly something to be strongly opposed at every turn.
[continued below]
February 7th, 2006 at 10:19:20 pm
So back to the Confederate flag, the flag’s origin and what it originally represents is far more complicated than in Bond’s views. To those who fought in the Civil War on either side, the Confederate flag didn’t necessarily symbolize slavery or racism, it symbolized a differing concept of liberty and freedom. Later on in American history, when the KKK and their ilk picked up the flag and waved it for their propaganda purposes, serious liberty-loving thinkers were forced to again appraise what the Confederate flag truly meant. At the end of the day, the Confederate flag, as I said from the very beginning, represents a lot of things, positive and negative, racist and non-racist. Reasonable people can draw differing conclusions about what the flag means to them.
In stark contrast, the Nazi flag and emblem of the swastika has come to represent Nazi German evil: genocide, extreme nationalism, racist vision. No reasonable person can view the Nazi flag as anything but representative of a truly evil time period, a truly evil regime, a truly evil leader, and truly evil polcies and state actions. For that reason, no reasonable German or American would support flying the Nazi flag–ever–under almost any official circumstance.
The two flags are simply not comparable.
February 8th, 2006 at 2:34:37 pm
Ignoring the swastika issue for a moment, the bigger topic in this kerfuffle is how the Fayetteville Observer caved in (or saw the light) and published the mp3 of the speech and a correction of the characterization of the speech.
Perhaps this will portent the beginning of the end of the days when radical left-wingers can make inflammatory speeches to their base while representing moderation “in public”. It reminds me a bit of how the mullahs in England say one thing in English and another in Arabic. Only in this country it is all in English and comprehension is less the issue than conscious airbrushing by a sympathetic media.
Is it me or is the dam beginning to break here?