The Confederacy was treason. Adhering to it today is still close to treason, not to mention racism.

There should be no monuments or honors for Jefferson Davis, for Stonewall Jackson, nor even for the sainted Robert E. Lee. Especially, Nathan Bedford Forrest should have no honors. These mythic Confederate "heroes" made their choices, and they're lucky they didn't hang for them.

I say this even though my ancestors fought and died under him. Memorialize the soldiers, fine, but those who ably led an evil cause deserve no statues.

The Confederate battle flag, whatever its esthetic properties, is permanently sullied by its Confederate use and again by its use in the 1960s as a rallying symbol for the forces of racist massive resistance. Swastikas can make eye-catching patterns - ask someone from India - but they cannot be redeemed either.

On Armistice Day in 1918, my grandfather wept. He believed, rightly it turned out, that Germany had not been tamed and there would have to be another war. Is there a way short of another civil war to remind the neo-Confederates of the suffering they inflicted on the nation and on themselves? I hope so, but the American gift for forgetting is in the way.

My anger is not at you, Elrod. I'm just sick of sugar-coating this shit.

Liberty and justice for all.

LL,
I certainly agree with you in your outrage against neo-Confederatism. My point about the aesthetics of the Confederate battle flag in no way diminish the evil of the Confederacy itself, or its modern apologists. I only made the point to explain how some bearers of the flag understand it themselves. They don't know or care about the Confederacy. They don't want to defend it or celebrate it. They just think the flag looks cool. 100 years of post-Reconstruction Lost Cause mythology and white-basis reconciliationism has so thoroughly obscured the meaning of the Confederacy that millions of youngsters today have no idea what it was.

I really think that's what's happened with Maryville High School. Many of the students who proudly paint the rebel flag on their chests in defiance of the latest flagpole ban do so only because they are "rebelling" against the school administration. They aren't doing it for "Southern pride" and they're certainly not doing it to celebrate the Confederacy itself (as did the man with the bumper sticker). But the tradition of using the flag is strong enough that the students will associate "Maryville Rebels" with the Confederate battle flag for the foreseeable future. That's why I think the only way the school board will ever get beyond the flag issue is to change the school's nickname. Even still there will be holdovers. But after a few years the association between the school and the flag will disappear.

Independence, in-your-face individualism, pride in the concept of fighting for a cause (no matter what the battle is about), and all the various symbolism connected to being a white Southerner. They see it as a symbol of a history that many would like to expunge and feel threatened. I think they fly the rebel flag as a way to say, "I am not ashamed to be a Southerner. I'm proud." The fact that it represents evil to so many people is, I think, lost on these people.

I do feel that sometimes the reason for the Civil War gets a little warped. It wasn't just about slavery (though this was a big part of it), and Lincoln was not totally anti-slavery. Also, many Northerners hated black people and some still do. If the Civil War was treason, so was the American War of Independence. The colonies did after all "rebel" against King George and British rule.

I don't know why, but the Confederate flag has never offended me the same way a German flag with a swastika does. All wars suck, and most are fought for stupid reasons. Usually involving money or land.

Many Confederate soldiers fought for the South as a beloved institution that went far beyond slavery. Shouldn't their families feel proud of those soldiers?

I loathe racism. I also loath war, but on an individual basis I can't shut my eyes to the fact that the soldiers in the trenches on all sides in all wars do show valor and make huge sacrifices.

Symbols of evil are only symbols. But what about the actual hatred and ignorance that causes people to admire them for all the wrong reasons? That's the problem.

How many people are actually engaged in ending racism? The only way institutional racism will be stopped is when people begin to make an effort to break down barriers, to reach out across color lines in their daily lives, to accept minorities as neighbors, and to do more than just pay lip service to the concept of equality.

I understand why you and others feel upset when they see the Confederate flag flying. You see it as a symbol of racism and yes it has been used that way, but it represents other things too.

I guess I'm not so much against the Confederate flag as I am against the people who fly it as a symbol of hatred for Blacks and Northerners.

For those people I have nothing but contempt.

Surely, most German soldiers in WWII fought not to eradicate European Jewry but to "defend their homeland" and "serve their country." And they certainly fought with valor. Should their descendants today be allowed to celebrate the individual courage and devotion to nation that their ancestors exercised in the hopeless battlefields of Stalingrad and Kursk? Should they be allowed to fly the Swastika - the very banner under which their ancestors fought - in order to honor their own individual relatives?
After all, just as the Union did not engage in war with the Confederacy to destroy slavery, the US and its Allies did not enter WWII to protect European Jewry.

The causes of the Civil War are multiple, but the basic elements aren't all that complicated. Large slaveholders dominated the legislatures of every antebellum Southern state. The seven Deep South states feared losing control of the Federal government to the Republican Party for a few reasons: 1) Loss of control over expansion policy to the West; 2) No more commitment to enforce the despised (in the North) Fugitive Slave Law; 3) The possibility of an antislavery party challenging planter rule WITHIN the South and drawing patronage from the Federal government. When Lincoln was elected the Deep South Seven seceded. The Republican Party cared litte about blacks but it cared greatly about standing up to the "slave power." It also believed that if it let the Deep South Seven secede, there would be a movement among Western states to do the same and the whole "American experiement" as they saw it would collapse. Confederates attacked Fort Sumter because Lincoln wouldn't vacate it. Lincoln called up 75,000 troops to put down the rebellion and four Upper South states (AR, VA, NC and TN) shifted from tentative Unionism to secession overnight.

The underlying reason for the creation of the Confederacy was the protection of the slave-based social order. Like capitalism it had to expand or die. Some politicians in Middle TN, Piedmont NC and VA and central AR supported secession only because fellow Southerners came under attack in April 1861. But for the vast majority of secessionist politicians the cornerstone of the new Confederacy was, as new Vice President Alexander Stephens put it, the protection of slavery and white supremacy.

Now this doesn't mean individual soldiers fought for this same reason. But if we're going to recognize the fundamental evil of the Confederacy itself, should we excuse the flying of the flag that represents that evil in the interests of "honoring ancestors?" I suppose one complicating factor is that the famous battle flag was more of a soldiers' flag than an official political flag; the official flag - the Stars and Bars - looks exactly like the brand new Georgia flag with the three stripes and circle of stars. But by the end of the war, the now-famous St. Andrew's Cross flag had come to symbolize the new nation.

Elrod, I suspect that your bumper stickered one may fall into a group of people than many of us can't comprehend, but they are out there by the thousands.

An acquaintance once told me that he had somehow graduated from high school without ever "cracking a book". The only things he ever read in his youth were motorcycle magazines. These good old boys are with us in abundance and, who knows, he may not have even made through high school. Even if he did, an almost total ignorance of history is pretty common in these parts.

I think the answer lies in the other reason discussed here. It enhances his self esteem among his peers and it pisses the rest of us off.

The Hill Online

I think the answer lies in the other reason discussed here. It enhances his self esteem among his peers and it pisses the rest of us off.

I believe it's tribalism at its core. There's no point in arguing the morality of it all. As a Jew I can understand the appeal (and perils) of tribalism. There's an old saying: 'Thou shalt not criticize a fellow Jew.' While the origins of this lay in self-protection, it can easily escalate into accusations over "self-hatred," and "selling out," especially when the issues of intermarriage and Israel come up. Apropos of this, most American Jews today are agnostic or borderline atheist on theological questions; Jewish identity is cultural and ethnic for most (but certainly not all) Jews. But they won't truck Christians telling Jews that they "rejected the true Messiah," even if they don't believe in the whole concept of a Messiah.

Many white Southerners feel similarly attacked: by white Northerners (and Westerners) and by blacks. So they resort to tribalism, including the provocative Confederate battle flag. Asking them to admit that they are or were wrong about some fundamental point of history is akin to a Christian imploring a Jew to criticize his fellow Jew on some point of religion. Even if the Jew is largely atheistic - and believes with the Christian that the religious Jew is wrong but also believes the Christian is wrong - he will still come to the defense of his more devout co-religionist, if only to protect the whole tribe. Like Jews, white Southerners are more interested in preserving an identity than in evangelizing or converting others. This may be out of left field but it's the only way I can make sense of it.

No, I don't think I'd like to see the descendants of soldiers who fought for Nazism flaunting swastikas. Though I'm not sure the comparision to the Confederacy is an exact fit. I do imagine in private German families do respect their forefathers though.

I guess it's one reason I'm not thrilled with people who flaunt the American flag as a symbol of triumph in war either. Nations tend to do horrible things believing all the while it is for a good cause. Iraq comes to mind. The bombing of Hiroshima is not something I feel proud of. Nor is Adu Grad and secret prisons. I suppose the survivors of Hiroshima and the victims of torture in Iraq (some were undoubtedly innocent) might find the American flag to be less than a symbol of beauty.

Sadly, I feel less proud of being American since the Iraq wae began. The torture, the duplicity, and the killing of so many innocents, has jaded me and left me feeling somewhat ashamed of the way my nation is behaving. Yet, while I do believe many of them are misguided and see glory in gore, I do support the troops for their willingness to sacrifice and their naive sense of belief in "the cause".

I just commented on this to express my honest and sometimes confused (even to myself) feelings about the Civil War. My impression is that it was very very complicated and deeply rooted in a sense of place.

You made a good point about the Swastika and German descendants. I guess I'm not very admiring of nations, but feel soldiers on both sides in all wars deserve recognition and prayers for their losses.

Couple of years ago, I went to Saratoga Springs and made a side trip to the Revolutionary War battle site there. My friend and i saw everything there is to see, and I kept feeling something that I couldn't quite put my finger on. looking over my shoulder. Finally, I figured it out. It was an absence of the tension that pervades the Civil War battle sites I'm accustomed to visiting.

Down here, the Civil War has been so politicized by these Southern Heritage types that you really have to watch what you say. They are intent on stamping that era with their own brand of neoconfederate right-wing politics, and they pounce on any deviations from their tribalistic orthodoxy.

A friend of mine who is a Civil War scholar told me he has to be very careful about the speaking engagements he accepts because those guys have infested roundtable groups all over the South. Front and center on their agenda is the demonization of Abraham Lincoln.

Elrod, your observations extremely astute. Hope you and your family are settling in well despite our local quirks.

This land was not unoccupied when Europeans first showed up. The first terrorist were those attempting to take that which wasn't theirs. By means of violence against civillians, biological warfare (smallpox blankets), and other various demoralization techniques, the Whites progressively stole this land from the historical residents. That moron's ancestors WERE the original terrorists.

CAFKIA

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It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
  - William G. McAdoo

Oh hell yeah. I'm reminded of this every time I visit the Caribbean. Nearly every island is an outpost of some European nation...to the point the islands closest to Venezuela have Dutch-only television. Folks drive on the left side, etc.

It's why even Northerners don't have clean hands in any of this exchange. I've been doing some genealogy research lately and, while most of my ancestry is 100% British into perpetuity, I've got some pure Native American in the woodpile as of about 1615 or so. One has to wonder...was the assimilation part of 'can't beat 'em might as well join 'em' plan? I suspect many people of European ancestry would be shocked at what sins lurk in their own individual family trees. (I suppose I ought to feel somewhat redeemed by the concept of original choice, since my own family is rife with both slaveowners and privateers of the original slave trade led by James Hawkins. Yet I like to think I've got better sense.)

Similar discussions take place in the Southern Pacific, most notably in New Zealand, where a debate raged recently on the usage of native Maori languages on the floor of the country's parliamentary body. Anyone who tells you different (that American colonization wasn't actually equal to or worse than slavery) is full of it.

Almost everybody I talk to around here mentions they are "part Cherokee." It seems East Tennesseeans are a combination of Scots-Irish, English and Cherokee (and sometimes German).

I'm part black-Irish from when the Spanish invaded Ireland and part Hungarian gypsy from when they invaded Sicily. I thought about this once and concluded my female ancestors had to be awfully slow runners. The rest of me is Miami Indian, English, and Dutch.

This is an interesting thread. Thanks, Elrod and posters.

I'd be very appreciative of direct thoughts to Elrod's questions: "When are descendants of East Tennessee Unionists - aka as the majority of people here - going to take some pride in their own families' contributions to saving the United States between 1861 and 1865? Why must the sons of Southern Unionists still feel ashamed, or become belated Confederates themeselves?"

(((Side note: my initial exposure to the Civil War came at age 10 (1971) or so when I looked at the World Book Encuyclopedia and discovered cool uniforms, maps, history in my backyard (SC at the time). I lived in the South so I identified with that "side"—sans politics, racism, etc. As a teen, I had a battleflag, etc. Skynyrd. Cool. And then... college, literature, eclectic interests and... genealogy! Forebears settled Carter County in the late 1770's. Overmountain Men. You know the rest: Unionists. One distant cousin was confederate (probably conscripted at 14 years old) in mid-NC.)))

Looking forward to your posts on Elrod's questions! I'll share my thoughts down the road a bit, as I don't wanna skew/influence any responses.