For the night anyway:
"The Confederate Flag Needs To Be Raised, Not Lowered
by Pastor Chuck Baldwin
July 10 2015
Ladies and gentlemen, I submit that what we see happening in the United States today is an apt illustration of why the Confederate flag was raised in the first place. What we see materializing before our very eyes is tyranny: tyranny over the freedom of expression, tyranny over the freedom of association, tyranny over the freedom of speech, and tyranny over the freedom of conscience.
In 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne warned his fellow southerners of the historical consequences should the South lose their war for independence. He was truly a prophet. He said if the South lost, “It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy. That our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all of the influences of History and Education to regard our gallant debt as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.” No truer words were ever spoken.
History revisionists flooded America’s public schools with Northern propaganda about the people who attempted to secede from the United States, characterizing them as racists, extremists, radicals, hatemongers, traitors, etc. You know, the same way that people in our federal government and news media attempt to characterize Christians, patriots, war veterans, constitutionalists, et al. today.
Folks, please understand that the only people in 1861 who believed that states did NOT have the right to secede were Abraham Lincoln and his radical Republicans. To say that southern states did not have the right to secede from the United States is to say that the thirteen colonies did not have the right to secede from Great Britain. One cannot be right and the other wrong. If one is right, both are right. How can we celebrate our Declaration of Independence in 1776 and then turn around and condemn the Declaration of Independence of the Confederacy in 1861? Talk about hypocrisy!
In fact, Southern states were not the only states that talked about secession. After the southern states seceded, the State of Maryland fully intended to join them. In September of 1861, Lincoln sent federal troops to the State capital and seized the legislature by force in order to prevent them from voting. Federal provost marshals stood guard at the polls and arrested Democrats and anyone else who believed in secession. A special furlough was granted to Maryland troops so they could go home and vote against secession. Judges who tried to inquire into the phony elections were arrested and thrown into military prisons. There is your great “emancipator,” folks.
And before the South seceded, several northern states had also threatened secession. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island had threatened secession as far back as James Madison’s administration. In addition, the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were threatening secession during the first half of the nineteenth century – long before the southern states even considered such a thing.
People say constantly that Lincoln “saved” the Union. Lincoln didn’t save the Union; he subjugated the Union. There is a huge difference. A union that is not voluntary is not a union. Does a man have a right to force a woman to marry him or to force a woman to stay married to him? In the eyes of God, a union of husband and wife is far superior to a union of states. If God recognizes the right of husbands and wives to separate (and He does), to try and suggest that states do not have the right to lawfully (under Natural and divine right) separate is the most preposterous proposition imaginable.
People say that Lincoln freed the slaves. Lincoln did NOT free a single slave. But what he did do was enslave free men. His so-called Emancipation Proclamation had NO AUTHORITY in the southern states, as they had separated into another country. Imagine a President today signing a proclamation to free folks in, say, China or Saudi Arabia. He would be laughed out of Washington. Lincoln had no authority over the Confederate States of America, and he knew it.
Do you not find it interesting that Lincoln’s proclamation did NOT free a single slave in the United States, the country in which he DID have authority? That’s right. The Emancipation Proclamation deliberately ignored slavery in the North. Do you not realize that when Lincoln signed his proclamation, there were over 300,000 slaveholders who were fighting in the Union army?
One of those northern slaveholders was General (and later U.S. President) Ulysses S. Grant. In fact, he maintained possession of his slaves even after the War Between the States concluded. Recall that his counterpart, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, freed his slaves BEFORE hostilities between North and South ever broke out. When asked why he refused to free his slaves, Grant said, “Good help is hard to find these days.”
The institution of slavery did not end until the 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865.
Speaking of the 13th Amendment, did you know that Lincoln authored his own 13th Amendment? It is the only amendment to the Constitution ever proposed by a sitting U.S. President. Here is Lincoln’s proposed amendment: “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any state with the domestic institutions thereof, including that a person’s held to labor or service by laws of said State.”
You read it right. Lincoln proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution PRESERVING the institution of slavery. This proposed amendment was written in March of 1861, a month BEFORE the shots were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
The State of South Carolina was particularly incensed at the tariffs enacted in 1828 and 1832. The Tariff of 1828 was disdainfully called, “The Tariff of Abominations” by the State of South Carolina. Accordingly, the South Carolina legislature declared that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were “unauthorized by the constitution of the United States.”
Think, folks: why would the southern states secede from the Union over slavery when President Abraham Lincoln had offered an amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing the PRESERVATION of slavery? That makes no sense. If the issue was predominantly slavery, all the South needed to do was to go along with Lincoln, and his proposed 13th Amendment would have permanently preserved slavery among the southern (and northern) states. Does that sound like a body of people who were willing to lose hundreds of thousands of men on the battlefield over saving slavery? What nonsense!
The problem was Lincoln wanted the southern states to pay the Union a 40% tariff on their exports. The South considered this outrageous and refused to pay. By the time hostilities broke out in 1861, the South was paying up to, and perhaps exceeding, 70% of the nation’s taxes. Before the war, the South was very prosperous and productive. And Washington, D.C., kept raising the taxes and tariffs on them. You know, the way Washington, D.C., keeps raising the taxes on prosperous American citizens today.
This is much the same story of the way the colonies refused to pay the demanded tariffs of the British Crown – albeit the tariffs of the Crown were MUCH lower than those demanded by Lincoln. Lincoln’s proposed 13th Amendment was an attempt to entice the South into paying the tariffs by being willing to permanently ensconce the institution of slavery into the Constitution. AND THE SOUTH SAID NO!
In addition, the Congressional Record of the United States forever obliterates the notion that the North fought the War Between the States over slavery. Read it for yourself. This resolution was passed unanimously in the U.S. Congress on July 23, 1861, “The War is waged by the government of the United States not in the spirit of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or institutions of the states, but to defend and protect the Union.”
What could be clearer? The U.S. Congress declared that the war against the South was NOT an attempt to overthrow or interfere with the “institutions” of the states, but to keep the Union intact (by force). The “institutions” implied most certainly included the institution of slavery.
Hear it loudly and clearly: Lincoln’s war against the South had NOTHING to do with ending slavery – so said the U.S. Congress by unanimous resolution in 1861.
Abraham Lincoln, himself, said it was NEVER his intention to end the institution of slavery. In a letter to Alexander Stevens who later became the Vice President of the Confederacy, Lincoln wrote this, “Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington.”
Again, what could be clearer? Lincoln, himself, said the southern states had nothing to fear from him in regard to abolishing slavery.
Hear Lincoln again: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.” He also said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so and I have no inclination to do so.”
The idea that the Confederate flag (actually there were five of them) stood for racism, bigotry, hatred, and slavery is just so much hogwash. In fact, if one truly wants to discover who the “racist” was in 1861, just read the words of Mr. Lincoln.
On August 14, 1862, Abraham Lincoln invited a group of black people to the White House. In his address to them, he told them of his plans to colonize them all back to Africa. Listen to what he told these folks: “Why should the people of your race be colonized and where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us, while ours suffers from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we should be separated. You here are freemen, I suppose? Perhaps you have been long free, or all your lives. Your race is suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of our race.”
Did you hear what Lincoln said? He said that black people would NEVER be equal with white people – even if they all obtained their freedom from slavery.
Lincoln’s statement above is not isolated. In Charleston, Illinois, in 1858, Lincoln said in a speech, “I am not, nor have ever been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on social or political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white.”
Why don’t our history books and news media tell the American people the truth about Lincoln and about the War Between the States?
It’s simple: if people would study the meanings and history of the flag, symbols, and statues of the Confederacy and Confederate leaders, they might begin to awaken to the tyrannical policies of Washington, D.C., that precluded southern independence – policies that have only escalated since the defeat of the Confederacy – and they might have a notion to again resist.
By the time Lincoln penned his Emancipation Proclamation, the war had been going on for two years without resolution. In fact, the North was losing the war. Even though the South was outmanned and out-equipped, the genius of the southern generals and fighting acumen of the southern men had put the northern armies on their heels. Many people in the North never saw the legitimacy of Lincoln’s war in the first place, and many of them actively campaigned against it. These people were affectionately called “Copperheads” by people in the South.
I urge you to watch Ron Maxwell’s accurate depiction of those people in the North who favored the southern cause as depicted in his motion picture, “Copperhead.” For that matter, I consider his movie, “Gods And Generals” to be the greatest “Civil War” movie ever made. It is the most accurate and fairest depiction of Confederate General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson ever produced. In my opinion, actor Stephen Lang should have received an Oscar for his performance as General Jackson. But, can you imagine?
That’s another thing: the war fought from 1861 to 1865 was NOT a “civil war.” Civil war suggests two sides fighting for control of the same capital and country. The South didn’t want to take over Washington, D.C., no more than their forebears wanted to take over London. They wanted to separate from Washington, D.C., just as America’s Founding Fathers wanted to separate from Great Britain. The proper names for that war are either, “The War Between the States” or, “The War of Southern Independence,” or, more fittingly, “The War of Northern Aggression.”
Had the South wanted to take over Washington, D.C., they could have done so with the very first battle of the “Civil War.” When Lincoln ordered federal troops to invade Virginia in the First Battle of Manassas (called the “First Battle of Bull Run” by the North), Confederate troops sent the Yankees running for their lives all the way back to Washington. Had the Confederates pursued them, they could have easily taken the city of Washington, D.C., seized Abraham Lincoln, and perhaps ended the war before it really began. But General Beauregard and the others had no intention of fighting an aggressive war against the North. They merely wanted to defend the South against the aggression of the North.
In order to rally people in the North, Lincoln needed a moral crusade. That’s what his Emancipation Proclamation was all about. This explains why his proclamation was not penned until 1863, after two years of fruitless fighting. He was counting on people in the North to stop resisting his war against the South if they thought it was some kind of “holy” war. Plus, Lincoln was hoping that his proclamation would incite blacks in the South to insurrect against southern whites. If thousands of blacks would begin to wage war against their white neighbors, the fighting men of the southern armies would have to leave the battlefields and go home to defend their families. THIS NEVER HAPPENED.
Not only did blacks not riot against the whites of the south, many black men volunteered to fight alongside their white friends and neighbors in the Confederate army.
If one wants to ban a racist flag, one would have to ban the British flag. Ships bearing the Union Jack shipped over 5 million African slaves to countries all over the world, including the British colonies in North America. Other slave ships flew the Dutch flag and the Portuguese flag and the Spanish flag, and, yes, the U.S. flag. But not one single slave ship flew the Confederate flag. NOT ONE!
By the time Lincoln launched his war against the southern states, slavery was already a dying institution. The entire country, including the South, recognized the moral evil of slavery and wanted it to end. Only a small fraction of southerners even owned slaves. The slave trade had ended in 1808, per the U.S. Constitution, and the practice of slavery was quickly dying, too. In another few years, with the advent of agricultural machinery, slavery would have ended peacefully – just like it had in England. It didn’t take a national war and the deaths of over a half million men to end slavery in Great Britain. America’s so-called “Civil War” was absolutely unnecessary. The greed of Lincoln’s radical Republicans in the North, combined with the cold, calloused heart of Lincoln himself is responsible for the tragedy of the “Civil War.”
And look at what is happening now: in one instant – after one deranged young man killed nine black people and who ostensibly photo-shopped a picture of himself with a Confederate flag – the entire political and media establishments in the country go on an all-out crusade to remove all semblances of the Confederacy. The speed in which all of this has happened suggests that this was a planned, orchestrated event by the Powers That Be (PTB). And is it a mere coincidence that this took place at the exact same time that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to legalize same-sex marriage? I think not.
The Confederate Battle Flag flies the Saint Andrews cross. Of course, Andrew was the first disciple of Jesus Christ, brother of Simon Peter, and Christian martyr who was crucified on an X-shaped cross at around the age of 90. Andrew is the patron saint of both Russia and Scotland.
In the 1800s, up to 75% of people in the South were either Scotch or Scotch-Irish. The Confederate Battle Flag is predicated on the national flag of Scotland. It is a symbol of the Christian faith and heritage of the Celtic race.
Pastor John Weaver rightly observed, “Even the Confederate States motto, ‘Deo Vindice,’ (God is our Vindicator), illustrates the sovereignty and the righteousness of God. The Saint Andrews cross is also known as the Greek letter CHIA (KEE) and has historically been used to represent Jesus Christ. Why do you think people write Merry X-mas, just to give you an illustration? The ‘X’ is the Greek letter CHIA and it has been historically used for Christ. Moreover, its importance was understood by educated and uneducated people alike. When an uneducated man, one that could not write, needed to sign his name please tell me what letter he made? An ‘X,’ why? Because he was saying I am taking an oath under God. I am recognizing the sovereignty of God, the providence of God and I am pledging my faith. May I tell you the Confederate Flag is indeed a Christian flag because it has the cross of Saint Andrew, who was a Christian martyr, and the letter ‘X’ has always been used to represent Christ, and to attack the flag is to deny the sovereignty, the majesty, and the might of the Lord Jesus Christ and his divine role in our history, culture, and life.”
Many of the facts that I reference in this column were included in a message delivered several years ago by Pastor John Weaver. I want to thank John for preaching such a powerful and needed message. Read or watch Pastor Weaver’s sermon, “The Truth About The Confederate Battle Flag.”
Combine the current attacks against Biblical and traditional marriage, the attacks against all things Confederate, the attacks against all things Christian, and the attacks against all things constitutional and what we are witnessing is a heightened example of why the Confederate Battle Flag was created to begin with. Virtually every act of federal usurpation of liberty that we are witnessing today, and have been witnessing for much of the twentieth century, is the result of Lincoln’s war against the South. Truly, we are living in Lincoln’s America, not Washington and Jefferson’s America. Washington and Jefferson’s America died at Appomattox Court House in 1865.
Instead of lowering the Confederate flag, we should be raising it.
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You know, be it Waterloo or WWII, the versions of history I was taught and told by my ejewkhazion $y$tem are distortions at best and lies at worst.
Did you know there were black regiments that fought for the South?
Related: Are You Brave Enough to Read This Blog?
You are this far in; might as well continue:
"FBI lapses led to sale of gun in S.C. attack; Accused killer had admitted to drug charge" by Ellen Nakashima Washington Post July 11, 2015
Also a "breakdown by local law enforcement," which is what we saw happen in Texas.
This thing has been damn near confirmed as a hoax, a crisis drill reported as live, for the obvious reasons.
WASHINGTON — The failure to block Dylann Roof’s purchase is likely to renew scrutiny of a troubled federal background-check system that also allowed troubled individuals to acquire firearms in previous shootings.
The Center for American Progress used the case to call for tightening the law on background checks.
Part of the agenda.
‘‘Like the Virginia Tech massacre, the Columbine massacre, and countless everyday shootings, gaps in our gun background check system contributed to the Charleston attack,’’ said Arkadi Gerney, senior vice president at the Center for American Progress. ‘‘The answer is simple: All records of prohibited individuals need to go in the FBI system and every gun sale needs to go through a background check.’’
They even throw in the Gabrielle Giffords event for good measure, and now all those shootings are called into question.
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So which FBI agent gave him the gun for the false flag? I doubt we will find out at the show trial.
On to more important matters:
"Cheers greet Confederate flag’s exit in S.C.; Next stop is S.C. military museum" by Stephanie McCrummen and Elahe Izadi Washington Post July 11, 2015
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Members of a state Highway Patrol honor guard approached the Confederate memorial, and as one turned a lever to lower the flag, the assembled large crowd burst into sustained applause and chants of ‘‘USA!’’ The flag will be placed in a museum.
Cheers and hugs marked the moment. Just before the ceremony, a few gray-haired white men at the front of the crowd waved Confederate flags. But many more spectators, both black and white, waved the US flag.
Cleo Bethune, 70, looked at the old, slightly faded Confederate flag before the honor guard removed it. ‘‘I feel very emotional,’’ said Bethune, who is black. ‘‘Everyone who embraces it should enjoy this moment and move on. Just move on.’’
Friday’s ceremony in Columbia followed a highly emotional debate in South Carolina over the flag’s place on the State House grounds, a conversation that began anew after last month’s mass shooting of nine worshipers at a historic black church in Charleston.
Related:
South Carolina Church Shooting a Hoax?
South Carolina Church Shooting Cover Story is a Set-Up
Boston Globe Burns Confederate Battle Flag
Confederate Flag Controversy is About Criminalizing Dissent
Globe Folds Up Confederate Flag
They unfurled it again for the Fourth.
The nation reeled with shock and pain, and the state and US flags atop South Carolina’s Capitol dome were moved to half-staff. But the Confederate battle emblem on the grounds nearby still flew high; only the Legislature had the power to lower or bring it down.
Photos then emerged of the suspect in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting, an avowed white supremacist, posing with the Confederate symbol.
I always thought you don't condemn a whole group of people, for the actions of a few, especially when it is questionable whether the flag should be associated with such a person.
The flag’s place of honor in the state gained instant national scrutiny, with those calling for its removal saying it symbolizes racial hate and violence.
In a high-profile gesture, an activist climbed the flagpole and removed the flag; she was arrested and the flag was replaced.
That was a false flag psyop, and that's why it is again cited.
Officials also said the flag should come down; they included Governor Nikki Haley, who asked the Legislature to take up the issue. Lawmakers passed a bill this week to remove the flag.
The Confederate flag flew on top of the Capitol dome starting in 1961; a compromise lawmakers reached in 2000 relocated it to a Confederate war memorial on the State House grounds.
South Carolina’s Senate on Tuesday swiftly and overwhelmingly approved the bill to relocate the flag to the nearby Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum. The bill passed the House with bipartisan support early Thursday, after 13 hours of increasingly tense and emotional debate in which defenders of the battle emblem insisted it represents Southern heritage, not racial oppression.
I didn't here anyone complaining about all the good old boys sacrificed in all the wars since 1865. They were heroes up until now.
Controversy over the battle emblem remains far from settled across the nation, and this week’s actions by the South Carolina General Assembly have ricocheted well beyond the state. Members of Congress have taken up the issue, and House Speaker John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, called for a review of Confederate symbols.
Related: Bill to allow Confederate flags at US cemeteries pulled
On Friday, crowds streamed toward the South Carolina Capitol, many dressed in shorts and hats and some in their Sunday best....
Reeks of a staged and scripted fiction, complete with crisis actors.
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The other side:
"S.C. to remove capitol Confederate flag; Bill passes after 13-hour debate; will be taken down in morning" by Richard Fausset and Alan Blinder New York Times July 10, 2015
COLUMBIA, S.C. — “The Sons of Confederate Veterans is dismayed that the politicians of the great state of South Carolina have traded their integrity for the fleeting benefit of appeasing those individuals and groups who do not let facts stand in the way of their objectives,” Charles Kelly Barrow, the group’s commander in chief, said in a statement.
The decision to remove the flag, Barrow said, “evidences a capitulation to the malicious campaign that has fanned the flames of divisiveness for the sole purpose of political gain. It is a politically convenient insult to the legacy of millions of South Carolinians.”
Barrow also said that his members would continue to resist “the wave of cultural cleansing and political correctness that sullies” the names of their Confederate ancestors.
Around the flag on the State House grounds Thursday, there was a buzz of conflicting emotions. Antiflag protesters, who had been there for days, held signs that conveyed messages of relief.
“IT IS A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN SC,” one sign read — an echo of the happy-talk catch phrase that Haley insists state workers use when they answer the phone.
Not everyone was happy. Michael French, 43, a contractor who lives outside Columbia, came with his son Chandler, 17, to take a picture of the flag before it came down.
“Biblically speaking, any time there’s something that causes division among men, it should be done away with,” said French, who is white. “But I don’t think that applies here, because there will always be something else” — that is, something else for protesters to protest about.
As long as it is not antiwar or anti-Wall Street, it's okay.
Related: NAACP wants Mississippi state flag altered to remove Confederate symbol
The words just got out of his mouth and....
As drivers passing by honked in support or shouted obscenities, some people waved small American flags.
May not be a good time to raise the issue, but what if that flag offends some (and believe me, it offends a lot of people around the world)? Then what?
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Related:
"Participants wore shirts with phrases including ‘‘heritage not hate’’ and talked of defending Southern traditions. A replica of the General Lee car from ‘‘The Dukes of Hazard’’ TV show led the procession."
Blogger took that down, because I logged it before I left. When I came back it was gone, and I did save and close before leaving. Who knows what other links I lost.
Also see: Republican group opposing Confederate flag removal
Petitions Spread to End Confederate Symbols
What's next, books?
"Harper Lee’s just-published sequel, “Go Set a Watchman,” the controversial new novel, only recently discovered, was the most preordered print book on Amazon since the release of the final installment of the “Harry Potter” series in 2007. But some of those customers — Holloway included — have lost their enthusiasm. “I don’t think I can read it,” she said on Monday.
“Go Set a Watchman” was written before “To Kill a Mockingbird,” but the action picks up about 20 years after its setting. Atticus has not only gone to a Ku Klux Klan meeting, but expresses repugnant opinions. “Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters?” he asks his daughter, Jean Louise (the adult Scout of “Mockingbird”). “Do you want them in our world?”
In Charlestown, Sue Lacey is so upset about the character’s hateful turn she is relieved that her Atticus — a brindle terrier mix, known as “Mr. Atticus” in later years — died before “Go Set a Watchman” tainted the name."
Did she burn it?
Almost time for bed, and I do need a new book to read, plus I saw good things. Atticus is redeemed.
Ever hear of that other Mockingbird?
Now if only I could find my library card.
Muslims help burned-down black churches to rebuild
Black children in US are much more likely to live in poverty, study finds
Says the diversionary and divi$ive pre$$ of the 1%.
Voting-rights trial will test N. Carolina’s 2013 changes
Trial challenging N.C. voting rights law begins
Like Sherman, the destroyer of cities, they are moving up through North Carolina now.
"N.C. Confederate monuments sullied" Associated Press July 17, 2015
RALEIGH, N.C. — The vandalism comes as the nation debates the appropriateness of the Confederate battle flag and Confederate monuments after the shooting of nine worshipers at a historically black church in Charleston, S.C. The suspect, a white man, has been seen posing in photographs with the Confederate flag.
And that event totally took the focus off the cops killing unarmed black men (along with a white person) every day.
While there have been numerous Confederate monuments vandalized across the South since the shooting, most monuments have been cleaned and reopened without having to be moved.
‘‘The vandalism, in some cases, will give city officials a much welcomed excuse for taking them down,’’ said James W. Loewen, an American sociologist who researches Confederate memorials. ‘‘This gives them an excuse to say we’re taking it down because it is a point of contention and to save the city trouble and money. Then they don’t have to take a stand on the underlying cause itself.’’
Hmmm. Cui bono?
The monument at Old City Hall was one of two Confederate monuments defaced in Charlotte on Wednesday. Police are investigating both acts of vandalism. No arrests have been made.
Probably won't be, either, even though there must be surveillance cameras nearby.
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Related: BU professor teaches a lesson in offensive speech
It's okay to hate as long as you are not white.
Heck, you can even cheer for politically-correct supremacism and elitism if you wish:
"N.C. teacher quits after reading story of gay couple to class" Associated Press June 16, 2015
RALEIGH, N.C. — After a third-grader tearfully recounted how another boy had called him ‘‘gay’’ during gym class, teacher Omar Currie chose to raise the issue during story time by reading his students a fable about a prince who falls in love with another prince, ending with a happily-ever-after royal wedding.
That decision in April ignited a public outcry from some parents in the rural hamlet of Efland, resulting in Currie’s resignation this week from a job he loved. The assistant principal who loaned Currie her copy of ‘‘King & King’’ has also resigned, and outraged parents are pressuring administrators at the Orange County Schools to ban the book.
Why go halfway? Why not burn it? Then hang the guy, right?
‘‘When I read the story, the reaction of parents didn’t come into my mind,’’ Currie, 25, said Tuesday. ‘‘In that moment, it just seemed natural to me to read the book and have a conversation about treating people with respect. My focus then was on the child, and helping the child.’’
Currie knows firsthand what it is like to be bullied. Growing up gay and black in a small town in the eastern part of the state, his memories of middle school are of being a frequent target for teasing and slurs.
As a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Currie entered a teaching fellows program with the intent of helping young people. He was first introduced to ‘‘King & King’’ during an education course that included strategies for introducing topics involving diversity in the classroom.
After graduation, Currie became a teacher at nearby Efland-Cheeks Elementary School. Though only about 15 miles west of Chapel Hill, a college town considered among the most liberal enclaves in the state, Efland is a socially conservative community of about 750 people where churches line the highway through town.
Within hours after reading the book to his students, Currie said he got a call from the school’s principal requesting a meeting in her office for the following morning. The parents of three children soon filed written complaints to a school review committee, which twice upheld the use of the book after heated public meetings. But the school’s principal also issued a new directive that teachers must submit an advance list of all books they intend to read with students to their parents.
‘‘King & King’’ has been a subject of controversy before. In 2006, the parents of a Lexington, Mass., second-grader sued after the book was read in their child’s class. A federal judge later ruled against them, saying the rights of parents to exercise their religious and moral beliefs are not violated when children are exposed to differing ideas in public school.
In his two years at Efland elementary, Currie said his sexual orientation had never been an issue. His co-workers, and some parents, knew he lives with his male partner.
But at the committee meetings to discuss Currie’s use of the book, some parents whose children were not in his class made their attacks personal, telling him he would die young and spend eternity in hell. He also began receiving hate-filled letters and emails, including one copied to other teachers at the school, described homosexuality as a ‘‘birth defect’’ while accusing Currie of trying to ‘‘indoctrinate’’ children through ‘‘psycho-emotional rape.’’
I think the issue is being used by a certain extreme element to push a perverted agenda. I don't think gayness in and of itself is unnatural or wrong. I suppose I am raising the white flag a bit here. I need to move on to other, what I consider more important issues. Gays are killed in wars; bankers loot gays like the rest of us.
Though he says administrators never formally disciplined him for his decision to read the book, Currie said he was made to feel that he had done something wrong and felt pressured to leave the school. He is currently looking for another teaching job.
A spokesman for the Orange County Schools said Tuesday that Interim Superintendent Pam Jones was not available for an interview.
Meg Goodhand, the assistant principal who resigned after loaning Currie the book, also declined to comment.
The decision to allow ‘‘King & King’’ in the classroom has now been appealed to the district level, and a public meeting to discuss the issue is set for Thursday.
Currie plans to attend and says he will speak out.
‘‘I'm resigning because when me and my partner sat down and talked about it we felt I wasn’t going to have the support I needed to move forward at Efland,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s very disappointing.’’
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Also see: North Carolina vote allows officials to refuse to perform gay marriages
What is next, sex with animals?
"South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the first-term Democratic mayor of Indiana’s fourth-largest city who is seeking re-election this year, writes in the essay published in the South Bend Tribune that being gay has no bearing on his service as a Navy reservist or his performance as mayor of the city that’s home to the University of Notre Dame, the nation’s most prominent Roman Catholic university."
More to it than that, but....
"Stonewall Inn gets landmark status, a nod to LGBT history.... Patrons resisted a police raid on the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969, and the protests that followed are credited with galvanizing gay activism in New York and globally. The rebellion is commemorated with annual gay pride parades in hundreds of cities, ‘‘a turning point in the LGBT rights movement and in the history of our nation.’’
There are still delays and resistance, but new ground is being broken all the time.
"Officials said the military also wants time to tackle questions about where transgender troops would be housed, what uniforms they would wear, what berthing they would have on ships, which bathrooms they would use, and whether their presence would affect the ability of small units to work well together. The military has dealt with many similar questions as it integrated the ranks by race, gender, and sexual orientation. Transgender people — those who identify with a different gender than they were born with and sometimes take hormone treatments or have surgery to develop the physical characteristics of their preferred gender — are banned from military service. But studies and other surveys have estimated that as many as 15,000 transgender people serve in the active-duty military and the reserves, often in secret but in many cases with the knowledge of their unit commander or peers."
You better be prepared if you join the military.
"The Texas Supreme Court upheld the Austin divorce of a same-sex couple Friday. Angelique Naylor and Sabina Daly were married in Massachusetts in 2004. The ruling comes ahead of a US Supreme Court decision that is expected any day now on whether same-sex marriage should be legal."
They had a rainbow flag opposite the AmeriKan flag outside the RMV station the other day, and I was offended -- although I'm sure it was just a glitch.
Time to take of the kimono:
"MFA recasts kimono days after complaints of stereotyping" by Malcolm Gay Globe Staff July 07, 2015
In an episode that speaks volumes about cultural institutions, ethnic sensitivity, and the power of protest in the digital age, the Museum of Fine Arts is hastily pulling back on an event that protesters labeled a latter-day form of racist minstrelsy.
MFA officials announced Tuesday they would recast “Kimono Wednesdays,” an attraction scheduled to run throughout July. It is extremely rare for the MFA to change exhibition plans in the wake of protests; it appears such action had not been taken for decades.
Created as a light summer distraction, “Kimono Wednesdays” invited visitors to “channel your inner Camille Monet” by donning museum-provided kimonos and posing for photos in front of Claude Monet’s “La Japonaise,” a painting of the artist’s wife wearing a kimono.
But the event quickly raised the hackles of protesters, who charged that the museum was perpetuating racist stereotypes by presenting Asian culture as quintessentially exotic.
At a celebration for departing MFA director Malcolm Rogers on June 24, a small group of protesters stood vigil. “This is appropriation, this is Orientalism,” read one sign. Rogers himself didn’t seem fazed, telling the Globe, “A little controversy never did any harm.”
How small?
But the protesters were back on July 1.
“Asian-Americans in this country have a history of being mis- or underrepresented — they’re either completely absent from the media or only depicted as Kung Fu, exoticized, mystical, dragon ladies, prostitutes, or what have you,” said Christina Wang, 29, who held a sign that read, “Try on the kimono, learn what it’s like to be a racist imperialist !!!today!!!”
**************
On Tuesday afternoon, the MFA issued a statement that read in part, “We apologize for offending any visitors.” Starting Wednesday, visitors will be able to touch, but not to wear, the kimonos, which will be presented with an educational talk until the event ends on July 29.
“It’s fair to say we were all quite surprised by the response,” said MFA deputy director Katie Getchell. “We thought it would be an educational opportunity for people to have direct encounters with works of art and understand different cultures and times better.”
The protests have been small by almost any standard, with only two protesters showing up last Wednesday (and one person “in support”) to hold signs as patrons tried on the kimonos and posed for pictures. (Suggested hashtag: #mfaBoston.)
And they SHUT IT DOWN! WOW! I just learned something about politically-correct agenda-pushing! And all those Occupy and antiwar protesters achieved nothing!
Still, their presence made some visitors uncomfortable.
The museum initially stood its ground, presenting staffers with an internal memo defending the event and saying it would continue. “We don’t think this is racist,” states the memo, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe (and by protesters, who posted it online).
But if the protests were small on the ground, the core group of activists garnered wider support online, setting up a Facebook event page and a Tumblr account. And nowhere was the outrage greater than on the MFA’s own Facebook page, where commenters decried the event as “vilely racist” and called for the museum to apologize.
I'm outraged at the psyop.
So if a handful of people complain.... ???
“Just stop,” said Ames Siyuan, 26, a protest organizer, who declared that the MFA can “do better.” “I don’t see how this is arts education. If anything, it perpetuates Halloween costumes of various races.”
They don't wear kimonos in Japan anymore?
Monet’s 1876 painting, which shows his wife, Camille, wearing a blazing red kimono, is thought to be the artist’s wry commentary on the craze for all things Japanese that swept Parisian art circles in the 1870s. Surrounded by fans, Camille posed in a blond wig, an intentional choice to highlight her European descent.
So the painting is actually a compliment of Japanese culture, 'eh?
Art historians believe Monet was poking fun at his contemporaries and the movement known as “japonisme.” Today, however, some activists and scholars regard the 19th-century European fascination with Asia in a more sinister light, dubbing it “Orientalism,” a handmaiden of Imperialism whereby nonwestern cultures are reduced to a handful of mysterious traits — unknowable exotics and therefore less human.
Yes, this legendary artist and painter would be pilloried today.
“We should have a conversation about Orientalism and why it’s wrong,” said Siyuan. “They’re perpetuating Orientalism. They don’t give any context. They’re like, try this on, and that’s it. That’s not the way to do it.”
But if the protesters were certain of their message, their meaning was lost on some visitors.
“They’re obviously here to make a point,” said Katelin Hardy, who arrived at the MFA last week intending to try on a kimono. After speaking at length with the protesters, however, she decided to forgo the opportunity, even if she wasn’t “quite sure” about their objections.
“They said everyone was racist,” said Hardy. “Maybe there needs to be a little more context to it, but by the time I was done, we were leaving, and I just couldn’t.”
People never react positively to that charge, and it's a poor argument against someone. Focus on the actions, not the alleged intent.
The kimonos, which are replicas of the garment in the painting, were commissioned by the Japanese broadcaster NHK to accompany “La Japonaise” for the recent traveling exhibit “Looking East”; visitors to museums in Tokyo, Kyoto, and the MFA’s sister museum in Nagoya could try them on as part of the exhibit.
“It was very successful in Japan, and we wanted to provide an opportunity to further the visitor experience in Boston,” said Getchell, who added that the MFA presented an educational talk on the event’s inaugural night. “People really appreciated the opportunity to see the kimonos, to try it on, to feel it, to appreciate its craftsmanship, and to think about what it would be like for a Parisian woman to have worn that at the time for her husband to paint her.”
But Siyuan and Wang say that things are more complicated in the United States, where Japanese and other Asians represent an often-overlooked minority. The event amounted to “cultural appropriation,” Siyuan said. “It’s white person after white person after white person saying this is not racist.”
The MFA isn't flying a Confederate flag over the building, are they?
In its statement, the MFA acknowledged the protesters’ concerns and hoped the programming change would further dialogue.
I no longer want to talk about it.
“We hope that it will be an opportunity to achieve our original goal to understand the artwork and the culture of its time,” said Getchell. “We didn’t intend to offend.”
--more--"
The tensions still linger as we lower the flag for another day.
Judge blocks Kansas’ ban on 2nd-trimester abortion procedure
Abortions declining greatly across most of US
Texas abortion restrictions upheld
Abortion clinic likely to close if La. law enforced
Iowa court allows remote dispensing of abortion pill
Arrest in abortion pill case questioned
American millennials rethink abortion, for good reasons
Dallas woman, 92, adopts 76-year-old cousin
Mich. adoption agencies can now decline referrals
Murder charge dropped against woman who induced abortion
Baby of dying mother leaves Omaha hospital
Kin loses case on dead teen’s brain
So they can steal your organs and you will never even miss them, huh?
NDUs:
Confederate Flag Rally Tests a Diminished Ku Klux Klan
I logged in to that guilt by association brush of tar.
"Transfer station manager J.R. Defosse told the Valley News that he was protesting South Carolina’s decision to remove the flag from its State House following the shooting of nine people in Charleston. Defosse apologized to him Friday for all the disruption the flag issue caused and said he will not display the flag."
Shipwreck found off N. Carolina coast
We haven't been told the full truth of the American Revolution, either.
UPDATE:
"Public pressure and media attention probably made it impossible for Solicitor Scarlett Wilson not to seek death, said Colin Miller, an expert on criminal law at the University of South Carolina School of Law. ‘‘This has to be understood as part of a continuum,’’ he said. ‘‘In this case, likely this was viewed as the only acceptable path that was to be taken by the solicitor,’’even though not all the victims’ families agree with the ultimate punishment. Relatives of shooting victims notably spoke out at Roof’s first court appearance, telling the alleged shooter they forgave him for the shooting and prayed God would have mercy on him."
I give up.
