Lee Bandy’s column today, ends with this quote from John McCain on the subject I dealt with earlier in the week:
Asked about the banner Tuesday, McCain said he thought the issue was resolved when the flag was removed from atop the Capitol dome and placed next to a Confederate Soldier Monument.
“This issue needs to be put to rest,” he said to loud applause.
There’s only one way this issue will be "put to rest." And we all know what way that is, don’t we, folks?
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I don’t think that the people who support the flag flying where it is now will ever go away quietly if the flag is removed from the statehouse grounds. I think flag supporters have argued so long and their positions and hearts have become so hardened that their minds will never be changed. That said, if the flag is removed they won’t have that particular dead horse to beat on any longer, but they will probably become more strident and inflamed about other issues…meaning more sensitive and arguementative when the next Confederate icon is threatened. Essentially I think we can look forward to arguing and fussing about this kind of thing forever. We might as well get used to the idea that neither side is EVER going to quit. I still think the flag should come down so as to force people like Joe Darby and Lonnie Randolph to get real jobs, but I am convinced either which way the flag issue goes that this will never be truly over. Ed
Is there a way that we could take the flag off the statehouse grounds and keep the NAACP from meeting within the Palmetto State’s borders?
Just wonderin’, but it might cause some folks to do some re-thinking…
“There’s only one way this issue will be “put to rest.” And we all know what way that is, don’t we, folks?” – Brad
When you quit posting threads about it?
Brad,
I appreciate very much your dedication to this issue. I’ll try to be brief for a change. First, I have two quibbles with Lee Bandy’s column.
1) It’s a (flying!) flag issue.
From the column, “The issue: Should the Confederate battle flag fly on the State House grounds, next to a Confederate war memorial?” Exactly right, but everywhere else in the column it’s the flag issue, and people are either for or against the flag issue. I don’t like this shorthand, because it is incorrect. The issue is SC’s flying of the flag, not the Confederate flag itself. This incorrect abbreviation reminds me of the coverage of the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church — sometimes people would refer to it as a sex scandal, which is incorrect. As Mark Twain wrote, “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
2) A museum is not a hiding place.
From the column, “Flag opponents, including the NAACP, would just as soon see the banner put in a museum so they wouldn’t have to look at it.” To me, this sentence seems to boil down what should be two paragraphs of nuance into a very misleading sentence.
A) The NAACP is a flag opponent? See Lonnie Randolph’s statement, “We support people flying it in front of their homes, in front of their restaurants and placing it on bumper stickers” in this column:
http://www.thestate.com/140/story/62791.html
B) Put in a museum so they don’t have to look at it? Seeing the Confederate flag flying on Statehouse grounds is disconcerting, to say the least. But the part about the museum is not an insult to the flag. Rather, it is a recognition of the flag’s importance. And people will gladly go to see the flag in the museum. I strongly believe that putting it in a museum is NOT meant to put it out of sight.
And now, returning to your post, and trying to keep to my promise of brevity: When is the first meeting of your organization to take down the flag? What is the agenda? What is our task list — first, get the SC NAACP to call off the boycott, and second get the SC legislature to take down the flag? What is our time frame? Will we plan to raise money for an exhibit in the State Museum?
OK, thanks for all.
Best Regards,
Michael Rodgers
Columbia, SC
Good question at the end there, Michael. I suppose I could go on about being shorthanded at work, the hectic ending weeks of a legislative session, all these bothersome presidential debates, and my daughter getting married last weekend, but that’s just a bunch of excuses. How about if I get back to you on it within the week? Hold me to it.
““There’s only one way this issue will be “put to rest.” And we all know what way that is, don’t we, folks?” – Brad
When you quit posting threads about it?”
Heh. It’s been months since I agreed with Randy on anything but here it is! I wish you would stop beating this thoroughly dead horse. In fact, it’s so dead that the ants and vultures have stripped all flesh off the carcass and the sun has bleached it a brilliant white.
Give it a rest, Brad, and instead get on the stick about some important issues for a change. For example, what’s the deal with the $1.5 Billion budget surplus that our piggies refuse to return to us?
Randy and Lex are correct. It’s time to give this issue a long, overdue rest.
I think Brad and the paper are in sort of a jam about the flag: Lots of people seem to want them to stop running pieces about it, and yet the flag continues to be a newsworthy topic in this state apart from whatever the paper does or says. I think unfortunately that it will be a newsworthy issue for many years and quite possibly forver (I said so above). So, what is Brad to do? Ignore an obvious issue thatarises regularly and inflames the passions of people on both sides, or report the news? Now it can be said, and fairly I think, that “reporting the news” is NOT all the paper does on this subject. Brad and The State share their opinion on the flag pretty regularly, and this could indeed stop. But to ask them to just drop it seems pretty naive to me. Ed
I wonder if Brad would still be shorthanded at work if he spent less time worrying about the Confederate Flag in his blog and more on getting the job done. From what I can see, Brad could save a lot of time by using Cut and Paste, since he repeats himself everytime he brings up this subject.
I didn’t realize the NAACP still had a boycott in effect.
Does that pertain only to their meetings, or other groups’ meetings?
Didn’t they just have a huge Democratic fundraiser at Brookland Baptist the other night?
No irony there.
Liberal church and state separatists, at least ONE admitted philanderer and adulterer, joining hands with publically funded abortion proponents… IN A BAPTIST CHURCH, no less!!
You left-wingers are sooo right.
We “christians” have done more to dishonor the message of Christ than millions of secularists.
If we won’t stand up for wrong, who do we expect to?
And why do blacks continue to allow themselves to be enslaved by the pandering of phony leaders? And in their churches, no less?
I thought the church was the last refuge from the worldliness exhibited by the secular progressives who want everything to appear equal so that nothing appears wrong.
“When is the first meeting of your organization to take down the flag? What is the agenda? What is our task list — first, get the SC NAACP to call off the boycott, and second get the SC legislature to take down the flag? What is our time frame? Will we plan to raise money for an exhibit in the State Museum?
Michael Rodgers
Brad – please remember me when you send out the notice of the first meeting! I’m still around, just quiet lately.
ummmm… that was from Claudia, not Claidia!
I knew a guy in the Navy who had Claidia once, but the antibiotics worked great.
Sorry.
Ed’s right. As long as it’s there, it can’t be ignored. And unlike the governor’s fictional $1.5 billion surplus (which seems to keep growing), the flag is ACTUALLY THERE.
We write all the time about the budget, and about the ACTUAL surplus, which is more like $700 million. And as we’ve said, our position is that the governor and the pork-fed lawmakers are both wrong. We have more important underfunded needs for that money — from mental patients wandering our streets and clogging our emergency rooms to overcrowded and underguarded prisons to unpatrolled highways to rural schools that lag so far behind the suburban ones — to blow it on either the local pork of the lawmakers OR the governor’s tax cuts.
And remember the governor doesn’t want to cut any taxes that are actually HIGH, just the income tax.
“remember the governor doesn’t want to cut any taxes that are actually HIGH, just the income tax.”
Brad, are you willfully ignorant or do you just pretend to be so you can advance your big-government ideology? I have twice before proven you dead wrong about the income tax. I even included links for you so you could finally inform yourself about reality but yet here you spout the same ignorant piffle again. So once more with feeling – maybe it’ll sink into your thick skull yet!
From the Cigarette tax: Whoop-te-doo thread:
“And if you’re going to cut a tax with the money, the grocery tax is a far better choice than the income tax, because the former is actually comparatively high, while the latter is not.”
Just leave it to Brad to once again demonstrate that he has no conception of reality, especially in the area of taxes. Contrary to his wildly inaccurate assertion above, SC’s top income tax rate is already 11th-highest among the states with an income tax and, even worse, it kicks in at a low $12,850 taxable income (9th worst among the states). It clearly is a strong disincentive for people and businesses to come to SC and create more jobs for our people.
In contrast our sales tax is right in the middle of the pack so the rational and correct choice clearly would have been to cut the income tax rates.
Posted by: LexWolf | Apr 29, 2007 12:23:53 AM
Randy, Lex and Bud,
Think harder boys. It is by no means time to give the flag issue a rest. I am afraid that you have no idea how big an issue that one flag on your State House grounds really is.
There are multiples more investment capital on hold than what is in the ground in Innovista.
That flag is a very powerful symbol and unfortunately it conveys a very confused message to the world.
Trust me, LexWolf, that flag has more short term and long term financial impact than any tax issue you want to club your blogmaster with.
Look to the future boys, if not for yourself, then for your children and your grandchildren.
I do not debate whatever values you think that flag originally stood for and I cast no aspersion upon the honorable fallen youngsters you want to remember fondly, BUT the original proponents have lost control of their flag, their symbol and in my world their brand.
A mortal mistake has been made. Which stereotype will prevail? The stubborn redneck who refuses to think harder or the truly honorable student of history who acknowledges the flag dilemma and puts it where it belongs… in a museum. Do the right thing. Your grandchildren might build a memorial to you.
Personally, as a black South Carolinian, I don’t care about the Confederate flag being on the State House grounds, just as long as it is no longer atop the State House building itself. Also, I think that having it put on the State House grounds along with the monument dedicated to blacks of this state, was a good compromise, and we should just let things stand as that. Besides, don’t the NAACP have more important things to be concerned about when it comes to African Americans, such as blacks not getting the kind of education that they should, not getting the kinds of good jobs that they should, not having fathers in the home (or at least having fathers available for their minor children), the high numbers of blacks in the criminal justice system, how blacks are sometimes mistreated in the criminal justice system, etc. I just wonder why the NAACP gets so wrapped up in this Confederate flag flap? I think that one of the answers may be that we need some younger people (under 50) running the NAACP, young people who are more forward thinking and did not come along during the civil rights struggle of the ’60s, because the older black population seems to have gotten stuck in that time period.
Luevonia, you’re a voice of reason at last! You’re absolutely right that there are many far more important things for the NAACP to worry about but attacking those problems would require much hard work instead of just flapping their gums.
I get so tired of reading about this non-issue when there are so many more important things to worry about. How about turning our attention to the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq? The paper pushes these stories further and further into the paper. It needs to be front-page news. How about the continued bleeding of jobs overseas and to Mexico?
The flag was removed from the dome and placed at the Confederate War Memorial – a VERY appropriate place for it to be. The negative connotation that the flag now seems to have has nothing to do with the war and everything to do with hate groups (including Nazis) highjacking the flag. Some people say why fly a flag of a defeated people. I ask why we should turn our backs on our heritage. We live in a democracy where we are governed by the will of the majority. A compromise was reached by a group of people that included black members of the state legislature. Enough has been said about this issue.
Luevonia,
Nice post. It’s great to have your voice in this and hopefully other debates. And I encourage you to get involved — it’s definitely important for young people to get involved! You’d be surprised how few young people, how few African-Americans, and, especially, how few (paltry? non-existent?) women are in our SC legislature.
One question, have you seen the flag flying from the flagpole on the Statehouse grounds? To me, the flying flag actually seems more prominent now than when it was atop the Capitol. Have lunch underneath it sometime and picture yourself as serving in the SC legislature. What speeches will you give, and what will the effect be? What does it mean for our legislature to fly the flag from anywhere on the Statehouse grounds — are we declaring war on the US?Wouldn’t you prefer the flying flag to no longer be flying from the Statehouse grounds?
Yes, there are lots of important issues facing SC, and this flying flag issue is just one issue. Personally, I think that the flying flag emboldens discriminatory practices. In my opinion, the flying flag makes it harder for SC to achieve progress on the other important issues you mentioned.
Yes, the African-American Memorial is excellent. I like the Confederate Memorial too, and I think that the Confederate Memorial could be improved. If we stuck forever to all political “compromises,” we’d still have Plessy v. Fergusson, Jim Crow, and “seperate-but-equal” as the law of the land. And was it really a compromise anyway? Or was that word used as spin, like President Bush’s recent “reasonable” proposal to have Rove and Miers chat with Congress but without taking an oath and without proper transcripts?
I think that, going forward, and speaking about the Confederate Memorial, that it can be improved by removing the Confederate flag from where it is flying from a flagpole. We can, as a suggestion, surround the soldier with 4 engraved plaques or with 4 glass display boxes, one with the Confederate flag, one with the SC Declaration of Secession, one with some quotes by Lincoln and Sherman, and one with some quotes by Davis and Lee. It’s just a suggestion — a commission of artists and historians (with input from the people) will do a better job with the improvement than I would alone! And we can also honor the Confederate flag’s importance by exhibiting it in the State Museum.
Finally, people have been criticizing the NAACP as too old, too slow, too focused on the courts, too focused on the federal government, irrelevant, and harmful (among many other criticisms) ever since it was first formed. A lot of young civil rights activists in the day (including US Representative John Lewis, who has an excellent book Walking With the Wind) were involved in SNCC, and there was also CORE and other groups. A great book to read is “The Children” by the great David Halberstam, who died quite recently.
Keep posting!
Regards,
Michael Rodgers
Columbia, SC
Sheila,
I completely agree that Iraq is much more important by far. And I feel that we’re stuck in Iraq because we can’t tell the story straight about whether we accomplished anything or not and about whether our soldiers died in vain.
Relatedly, we’re still struggling today to tell the story properly about the sacrifices of the Confederate soldiers. At this rate, how long will the Iraq War last? President Bush seems no where as honorable as General Lee.
We’re still in Iraq because we have no idea how to properly achieve reconstruction when the local population is diverse — just like how horrible it was for the people of the South during “Reconstruction.”
We must learn the lessons of the Civil War as soon as possible so that we can apply them to the war we are actually facing now!
Regards,
Michael Rodgers
Columbia, SC
Here’s something that should disturb all Americans but probably will have zero impact on the war supporters. Our involvement in Iraq is helping fund Al Qaeda! From the LA Times:
WASHINGTON — A major CIA effort launched last year to hunt down Osama bin Laden has produced no significant leads on his whereabouts, but has helped track an alarming increase in the movement of Al Qaeda operatives and money into Pakistan’s tribal territories, according to senior U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the operation.
In one of the most troubling trends, U.S. officials said that Al Qaeda’s command base in Pakistan is increasingly being funded by cash coming out of Iraq, where the terrorist network’s operatives are raising substantial sums from donations to the anti-American insurgency as well as kidnappings of wealthy Iraqis and other criminal activity.
Brad,
Thanks for your response. Congratulations to you and to your family and to your daughter and her new family. How are things at the paper? Is the legislature wrapping up? Will we target their next session?
What’s next? Please inform Claudia too and anyone who wants to participate. I look forward to the progress that we will make on this issue. We’re going to get it done together SC!
Regards,
Michael Rodgers
Columbia, SC
Brad,
How about if I go ahead and schedule and organize a meeting? You don’t have to have everything on your shoulders. I mean, we’re all in this together. Maybe Mayor Bob Coble can start a commission or just encourage participation in some public meetings. What do you suggest on how to proceed?
Regards,
Michael Rodgers
Columbia, SC