A Thread For Posts About The Confederate Battle Flag...

[liberty]

Would you all be opposed to us choosing a new design using our traditional colors. How about a solid red field with a white border, would that be offensive? Why does it bother you Yankees so much if we have a separate heritage?

[BoSoxGal]

Yeah, I'm opposed to that. You are Americans again (for the past 150 years, in fact!), and you should have this



as your flag and no other except your state's flag and those should NOT bear the markings of the Confederate flag, an enemy of this country whose primary objective was to oppress an entire race of people.

GETOVERITALREADYYOULOST

[Lord Jim]

Yeah, if you'd been at First Manassas, you (and every other Yankee about) could have used that to replace your soiled under garments...

[liberty]

.

GETOVERITALREADYYOULOST

No, that is your flag remember Vietnam?

[BoSoxGal]

I have no problem with my country admitting defeat in Vietnam - only beef I have is that we got involved there in the first place, then did it again in Iraq.

[BoSoxGal]

Bigots unite in support of Confederate flag:









You gotta be carefully taught!


Source

[Gob]

You can't ban the flag, what would these guys do?

[Joe Guy]

I dunno

Crash and burn?

[Gob]

Ouch!!

[BoSoxGal]

Black Churches Are Burning Again in America

EMMA GREEN JUN 25, 2015
Updated on June 28, 12:34 p.m ET

This week, there were fires in at least six predominantly African American churches. Arson at religious institutions has decreased significantly over the past two decades, but the symbolism remains haunting.

“What's the church doing on fire?”

Jeanette Dudley, the associate pastor of God's Power Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia, got a call a little after 5 a.m. on Wednesday, she told a local TV news station. Her tiny church of about a dozen members had been burned, probably beyond repair. The Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco got called in, which has been the standard procedure for church fires since the late 1960s. Investigators say they’ve ruled out possible causes like an electrical malfunction; most likely, this was arson.

The very same night, many miles away in North Carolina, another church burned: Briar Creek Road Baptist Church, which was set on fire some time around 1 a.m. Investigators have ruled it an act of arson, the AP reports; according to The Charlotte Observer, they haven’t yet determined whether it might be a hate crime.


Two other predominantly black churches have been the target of possible arson this week: Glover Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Warrenville, South Carolina, which caught fire on Friday, and College Hill Seventh Day Adventist, which burned on Monday in Knoxville, Tennessee. Investigators in Knoxville told a local news station they believed it was an act of vandalism, although they aren’t investigating the incident as a hate crime. (There have also been at least three other cases of fires at churches this week. At Fruitland Presbyterian Church in Gibson County, Tennessee, and the Greater Miracle Temple Apostolic Holiness Church in Tallahassee, Florida. Officials suspect the blazes were caused by lightning and electrical wires, respectively, but investigations are still ongoing. A church that is not predominantly black—College Heights Baptist Church in Elyria, Ohio—was burned on Saturday morning. The fire appears to have been started in the sanctuary, and WKYC reports that the cause is still under investigation. The town’s fire and police departments did not immediately return calls for confirmation on Sunday.*)

These fires join the murder of nine people at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as major acts of violence perpetrated against predominantly black churches in the last fortnight. Churches are burning again in the United States, and the symbolism of that is powerful. Even though many instances of arson have happened at white churches, the crime is often association with racial violence: a highly visible attack on a core institution of the black community, often done at night, and often motivated by hate.

As my colleague David Graham noted last week, the history of American church burnings dates to before the Civil War, but there was a major uptick in incidents of arson at black churches in the middle and late 20th century. One of the most famous was the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four girls. Three decades later, cases of church arson rose sharply. In response, in 1995, President Bill Clinton also set up a church-arson investigative task force, and in 1996, Congress passed a law increasing the sentences for arsonists who target religious organizations, particularly for reasons of race or ethnicity. Between 1995 and 1999, Clinton’s task force reported that it opened 827 investigations into burnings and bombings at houses of worship; it was later disbanded.


In recent years, it’s been harder to get a clear sense of the number of church fires across the country. The National Fire Protection Association reports that between 2007 and 2011, there were an average of 280 intentionally set fires at houses of worship in America each year, although a small percentage of those took place at other religious organizations, like funeral homes. One of the organization’s staffers, Marty Ahrens, said that tracking church arson has become much more complicated since reporting standards changed in the late ‘90s. Sometimes, fires that are reported to the National Fire Incident Reporting System are considered “suspicious,” but they can’t be reported as arson until they’re definitively ruled “intentional.” Even then, it’s difficult to determine what motivated an act of arson. “To know that something is motivated by hate, you either have to know who did it or they have to leave you a message in some way that makes it very obvious,” she said. “There are an awful lot of [intentionally set fires] that are not hate crimes—they’re run-of-the-mill kids doing stupid things.”

The investigations in North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Ohio, and Tennessee are still ongoing, and they may end up in that broad category of fires of suspicious, but ultimately unknowable, origin that Ahrens described. But no matter why they happened, these fires are a troubling reminder of the vulnerability of our sacred institutions in the days following one of the most violent attacks on a church in recent memory. It’s true that a stupid kid might stumble backward into one of the most symbolically terrifying crimes possible in the United States, but that doesn’t make the terror of churches burning any less powerful.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/arc ... ia/396881/

[wesw]

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 3405,d.cWw

[wesw]

thanks for not deleting my account , gob.

a number of people have really ticked me off recently, but I m done with my little tantrum. I still don t feel like talking to ya ll right now tho...

labeling half the country bigots is just crazy. crazy in terms of accuracy and in terms of the results that these claims will produce.

I don t seem to be able to make any effective arguments or pleas, so, I have decided to use the words of others to convey the knowledge of southern/country/rebel life and people, that I seem to be unable to impart to you on my own.

I don t believe you will find much hate in what I present to you. the first song, Curtis Loew reminds me a lot of myself. the kid, not the black guy...

[wesw]

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 3405,d.cWw

here s a real good one....

[wesw]

that hank jr song makes millions of grown folks cry. don t fuck with em too hard......

[wesw]

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... Dg1hWUYpYQ

[Long Run]

Wesw, I'd recommend copying the text and using the "Quote" feature, as well as using the "youtube" feature so that people can get an actual look at what you are linking to.

[Lord Jim]

labeling half the country bigots is just crazy. crazy

Wes, I think you know how I feel about this mindless dumping on the CBF, and the characterization of those who fought for the Confederacy as "traitors", etc...

And disagreements over this has led me into some very unpleasant exchanges; (including with at least one person who I respect, and generally get along with very well...he and I have had some other testy exchanges over the years...)

But that hasn't brought me to ask that my membership be deleted...

I've been a minority of one on some other topics around here; I'm good with that... ( see Redskins, Washington The)

You have to put this place in perspective...

I've described this forum (and the two that preceded it) before as basically a cyber "college bull-session" ....

Or a forum where a group of aging middle aged folks (most of whom have been interacting for a number of years), wag their fingers at each other in fairly predictable ways...

That can be an enjoyable experience, but you have to accept it for what it is and not take it personally...

(It's also a very "flat medium" involving nothing but typed words, which can easily lend itself to misunderstandings)

Nothing that's said here has any effect on your "real life"; enjoy it for what it's worth, and take it for what it is...

Don't get your knickers in a knot about it...

ETA:

That's not to say that you can't make "real" friendships (or lasting bonds, as Strop did) with people that you meet in a forum like this...

Back in "The Golden Age Of The Cafe Darte" in the mid-to late 90's, I had occasion to meet with about two dozen of the board participants at "FtF" gatherings all across the country... (In DC, in LA, in Vegas, in Sacramento, and here in 'Frisco...I think the only two still around here from that time are Guin and Kristina...)

And there are others who I haven't met but have spoken with on the phone, (Strop, Dale, Tim, Bones... even Guy, Gwen and Steve...and the owner of The Late CSB, Sean...)

And a few I haven't met or spoken with, but would be happy to do so...(Meade, Sue, Scooter, oldr and @W come to mind, off the top of my head...)

[wesw]

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... ug3hXHy12A

here s one that I like. if you have ten minutes, and a doobie, throw it on the hi-fi. computer speakers don t do it justice.....

The Outlaws-Green Grass and High Tides


...and speaking of doobies, here is another anthem... The Doobie Brothers - Blackwater....
...let me just go find it....
...yeah, you guys were on my ass about learning to post links correctly..., bet you regret it now , huh?

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... K7tOgjk0Eg

[Econoline]

[wesw]

good advice. now, let s tear his statues down.....