Seriously, what's different? Is racism that strong? Germany has long since moved on but in America the South lost the war but has won the narrative:
"Some of those who invoke the “heritage, not hate” mantra are disingenuous. On the day of the shooting, I was in rural east Texas, touring a small town with a businessman who displayed the rebel flag on his truck. After telling me “it’s heritage, not hate,” he proceeded to refer to a black neighborhood as “Niggertown” and rant against the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/how-south-lost-the-civil-war-won-narrative-confederate-flag
Well that's understandable. But again-how has Germany come back from a much more recent defeat that left the country crushed with terrible loss of life and property? You're talking about great grandfathers and great great grandfathers lost in the South to fathers and grandfathers in Germany
"But a deeper problem remains, and not just among those who cherish the Confederacy. Nationwide, Americans still cling to a deeply sanitized and Southern-fried understanding of the Civil War. More often than not, when I talk to people about the conflict, I hear that it was about abstract principles like “state sovereignty” and “the Southern way of life.” Surveys confirm this. In 2011, at the start of the war’s sesquicentennial, the Pew Research Center asked more than 1500 Americans their view as to “the main cause of the Civil War.” Only 38 percent said the main cause was slavery, compared to 48 percent who answered states’ rights."
Of course, here, if you really want to get into the history it was largely about economics as well-slavery was not just a moral obscenity but it was also keeping the nation economically backwards.
But it's amazing how much the Civil War still has power. The reason is race. The flag only came back when the civil rights movement became threatening to segregation.
"In the decades after the Civil War, the rebel battle flag appeared mainly at historical and memorial events honoring Confederate veterans and the dead. Not until the 1940s did it frequently serve as a baldly racist banner, brandished by segregationist Dixiecrats and by the Klan and other groups during the Civil Rights era. It was also at this time that the flag appeared atop Southern statehouses, first in South Carolina and then in Alabama, where Governor George Wallace raised it ahead of a hostile meeting in 1963 with Robert F. Kennedy, then U.S. Attorney General. A few months earlier, Wallace stood beside a rebel flag as he took his oath of office at the precise spot where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as Confederate president."
The good news is the Confederate flag's reign seems finally coming to an end.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/states-removing-confederate-flag-symbols-charleston
"Some of those who invoke the “heritage, not hate” mantra are disingenuous. On the day of the shooting, I was in rural east Texas, touring a small town with a businessman who displayed the rebel flag on his truck. After telling me “it’s heritage, not hate,” he proceeded to refer to a black neighborhood as “Niggertown” and rant against the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday."
"Most flag defenders, however, are sincere when they say they cherish the banner as a symbol of their ancestors’ valor. About 20 percent of white Southern males of military age died in the Civil War. In South Carolina the toll was even higher, and thousands more were left maimed, their farms and homes in ruins. For many descendants of Southern soldiers, the rebel flag recalls that sacrifice, and taking it down dishonors those who fought under the banner. No one wants to be asked to spit on their ancestors’ graves."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/how-south-lost-the-civil-war-won-narrative-confederate-flag
Well that's understandable. But again-how has Germany come back from a much more recent defeat that left the country crushed with terrible loss of life and property? You're talking about great grandfathers and great great grandfathers lost in the South to fathers and grandfathers in Germany
"But a deeper problem remains, and not just among those who cherish the Confederacy. Nationwide, Americans still cling to a deeply sanitized and Southern-fried understanding of the Civil War. More often than not, when I talk to people about the conflict, I hear that it was about abstract principles like “state sovereignty” and “the Southern way of life.” Surveys confirm this. In 2011, at the start of the war’s sesquicentennial, the Pew Research Center asked more than 1500 Americans their view as to “the main cause of the Civil War.” Only 38 percent said the main cause was slavery, compared to 48 percent who answered states’ rights."
Of course, here, if you really want to get into the history it was largely about economics as well-slavery was not just a moral obscenity but it was also keeping the nation economically backwards.
But it's amazing how much the Civil War still has power. The reason is race. The flag only came back when the civil rights movement became threatening to segregation.
"In the decades after the Civil War, the rebel battle flag appeared mainly at historical and memorial events honoring Confederate veterans and the dead. Not until the 1940s did it frequently serve as a baldly racist banner, brandished by segregationist Dixiecrats and by the Klan and other groups during the Civil Rights era. It was also at this time that the flag appeared atop Southern statehouses, first in South Carolina and then in Alabama, where Governor George Wallace raised it ahead of a hostile meeting in 1963 with Robert F. Kennedy, then U.S. Attorney General. A few months earlier, Wallace stood beside a rebel flag as he took his oath of office at the precise spot where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as Confederate president."
The good news is the Confederate flag's reign seems finally coming to an end.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/states-removing-confederate-flag-symbols-charleston
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