Pretty easy to do the math for a company like Amazon. How much do they make selling confederate battle flags vs how much free positive publicity and brand enhancement do they get for a press release saying they won't sell them?
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Stars and Bars
- Thread starter jmcquate
- Start date
In a case like this it is fear of boycott and being tarred as racist, which is not good PR. Business decision, sure. But only due to negative influences. The sort of decisions and tactical movements taking place now by everyone from businesses to political candidates is only out of fear of backlash. It isn't to generate positive press or they would have done it a long time ago. Good positive PR is always desirable. Why not before? Because the climate did not generate negative consequences. If it looks like good PR on the evening news to some, to others it is hypocritical, cowardly, too little too late, or disingenuous.
This whole debate is stupid and detracts from the victims who were murdered. I see this as a complete political ploy by S. Carolina politicians and other political figures on the eve of a political season. I could care less for the Confederate Flag. I find it interesting that taking down the Confederate Flag has gotten more press and controversy on all the major news networks yet burning the American flag in public has not.
Thanks for the seque. Mark you calendars.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...on-social-media-burning-the-confederate-flag/
Good thing Amazon is still selling confederate flags. So much for doing the right thing as a "business decision". Walmart?
http://www.idigitaltimes.com/where-...ead-national-burn-confederate-flag-day-452612
So, it begs the question. Is it still righteous to buy (this includes retailers who buy from wholesalers and have now vowed to repent) racists symbols from people who are profiting from said hateful products that offend millions, if you are going to make a useless (but feel good) self congratulatory internet spectacle? It isn't possible God will let anyone accidentally burn themselves while participating in such a worthy anti racist act, is it?
...........and not being from Virginia.
The whole situation is just sad. The progressive left's domination of our culture has allowed them to take any tragedy and use it to obtain results to any unrelated pet cause that they could not previously achieve through persuasion or the courts. My hunch is that a lot of this is fueled by the coastal elites disdain for the southeast. I have experienced this first hand when I moved to Boston from Houston in the late 90s. I can't tell you how many Bostonian's asked me "how could you have ever lived in Texas?" I would always answer that the people in Houston were the friendliest that I had ever been around. Oh, and Boston was the most racially divided and racist city that I have ever lived in. Blacks have been flocking the the south over the last decade for economic opportunities and a better quality of life, but mostly to escape the failed policies of the progressive northern city governments. Ya, in the south you see symbols of the Confederacy, but the Confederacy has been long gone and buried.
So if the locally-elected and Republican-dominated legislature of South Carolina decides to remove the Confederate flag from their statehouse (after the Republican governor of Alabama ordered its removal from his), and the Republican-dominated legislature of Mississippi changes their state flag, that's due to the progressive left's domination of our culture? Do explain.
I'm the last guy who is going to excuse modern liberalism's disturbing tendency to go all Fahrenheit 451 and nuclear on anything they disagree with. It's immature, totalitarian, and thoroughly un-American. But the reason it disturbs me is because from time to time, as a conservative, I'm going to be . . . wait for it . . . *GASP!* . . . wrong! Oh noes! The horror! And when that happens I'd rather have an ideological opponent who is erudite and well-reasoned rather than a grown child shrieking about trigger warnings and microaggressions.
God forbid we acknowledge that governments in the Deep South, and the people who elected them, actually have the right to reconsider their opinions. And the right to maybe do something shocking like change their collective mind.
Several of the companies that have recently made the decision have very liberal leadership that probably didn't think of their sale of items with the flag until it's most recent association with violence thrust it into the spotlight again after years of being in the background. Now they have made a business decision many were probably pretty happy to make, not due to 'negative influences'.
Sorry but having gone to a military school in the south I heard plenty of disparaging remarks about the north, liberal elites and whoever else folks could disparage about 'other' folks not like them. No one has an exclusive on disparaging the other side, don't pretend otherwise.
As for 'unrelated' causes, not quite when the murderer uses the same flag to emphasize his hate continuing what has been a long tradition of using that flag for that purpose.
You don't just see symbols of the Confederacy, they have been an integral part of the culture there since the war ended. This reaction to symbols of the Confederacy, whose main reason for being was slavery, is long overdue.
My brother in law is black. He was an Army brat and brought up and subsequently worked around the country. His mother and her family are southerners. He lived in Houston before moving to Phoenix. He has echoed what you said here. He has found that the south was more comfortable with race and any vestiges of the "old" south were buried deep. But then he doesn't whine about racism or prejudice. In fact my sister in law is more sensitive then him. At a big family Thanksgiving meal a bunch of the family were debating some race issues and he was doing the post meal guy thing half asleep in front of a football game. When asked his opinion on the subject at hand he said " I am free to walk down any side of the street I please any time of the day or night and eat at any restaurant I wish. I don't care what thoughts are in other folks minds." I haven't asked him about the flag, but I expect he would prefer it down but was never worked up by it. Actions matter. freedom matters. Hidden thoughts and racist jokes in private should matter little to a minority that is treated fairly and respectfully by those people who would think or say those things. One wonders if any South Carolina African American would trade their right to vote for the people that occupy the capitol, for the flag being lowered. Wouldn't they court the support of a legislator for an education bill if that legislator voted to keep the flag flying? The flag is a symbol and only a symbol. Repugnant as it may be understood today, it doesn't keep any minority American in poverty, keep them from being hired to a job, or sitting anywhere on a bus.
I agree, so have I, but not with the national reach of the media
Your point is very well-stated (as are most in this thread), but I do feel the need to mention, in the Field Marshal's defense, that he most likely died as a result of deciding to take violent action against the vile leadership under which he served his country.
But it is a symbol that reminds everyone of a time when that did occur, officially sanctioned too.
Sure. Like they were sleeping when flag issues came up in at least three states in the last 10 years. For God's sake, Walmart is based in Arkansas. The current spotlight is on a terribly tragic incident. But the issue has been alive all along. Believe what you like. If this hadn't happened and the subsequent negative influences were not present none of these companies would have done a thing. They are afraid of backlash. So much for the enlightened liberal leadership of some of the companies in question. They would rather spend weeks verifying the fair trade bona fides of the coffee in the break room and buying hybrid cars for their fleets then take the actions they now find so pressing. If it is right today it was right two weeks ago or two years ago. The actions of a single killer have little to no bearing on what the flag imagery meant before he shot his first victim and toady. Hypocrites.
And by extension a reminder of a time when nearly half million died in a war that ended it. And a reminder when brave Americans of all colors marched for change against people holding that flag, and prevailed!! The thing with a symbol is it can mean different things to different people. You don't have to see it as a threat or hate. You can chose to see it as a sad relic of a time long gone held onto by SOME people who's views are so unacceptable today that they live in the shadows and can't possibly hold any sway over the minorities of this country. Long ago the Confederate Battle flag was co-opted and made a symbol of white racism. Something it never really was to the average soldier. That is just a fact. So I say redefine it again. Make it a symbol of the defeat of racism. Make it a symbol of pride for those that defeated it. I for one could never be hurt or offended by any such symbol.
Fact. That wasn't meant as a dig on Lee, either. Yes, by our modern standards, he was a racist. So was Lincoln, though. It was a near thing for Lee; he almost accepted command of the Army of the Potomac (what a different world that would have been). He didn't because his home and family were in Virginia, and he couldn't take up arms against his neighbor. And I don't think he was motivated to fight by racist ideals, at least any more than the prevailing views of his time. It's a mistake to judge people by our modern values when we've had the benefit of 150 years of hindsight.
We live in a fallen world, and in that world, I'd argue that Lee and Rommel were both at least relatively honorable men who fought on the wrong side. We can admire some qualities about them while recognizing that they fought under banners which are and were symbols of oppression. That's half the problem with the childish political discourse dominating the media today; it refuses to recognize people and ideas in all their murky shades of gray. For every Nathan Bedford Forrest or Adolf Hitler, there are many Erwin Rommels and Robert E. Lees. That's simultaneously depressing (they fought for evil governments) and hopeful (they arguably weren't evil people). Many lessons to be taken away from that.