Several weeks ago, I saw a guy riding a motorcycle with the American flag flying from the back of his bike and the confederate flag sewn on the back of his jacket. I do not live anywhere near a southern state.
I can’t fathom the amount of mental gymnastics it takes to proudly fly the flags of two opposing parties in a major war and still somehow believe it represents your views.
I kinda feel like the American flag itself has taken on connotations that align with the confederate flag.
When I see the American flag in current times, I think of roll coal 'murka fuck yeah sentiments.
Yeah, sadly, any time I see an American flag that isn’t on a pole I know without asking what kind of people are displaying it.
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That’s the strategy-- they’re co-opting it. Don’t let them.
Fuck yeah. Bleed red white and blue baby! That’s our fuckin flag!
I think of it like any expression of non-oppressed identity.
It’s perfectly fine to be proud of a non-oppressed identity, as long as it’s not something ridiculous or harmful. But the people who feel the need to shout it from the rooftops are often the worst possible representatives of that identity.
Cyclist here! American flags protect you from getting run off the road. I’m serious. My hypothesis is that Jimbos hate woke cyclists unless they stand with 'Murica.
When I see the American flag, I see people proud of shit they had nothing to do with personally. It’s no different than sports teams gear at this point.
There are Canadians that proudly fly the confederate flag too. Olympic level mental gymnastics
If I remember right, the rich confederates hid their wealth during the war in banks in Montreal. There were definitely Canadians who were allies with them.
What’s wilder is seeing the Confederate flag well outside the USA. I was just in the eastern part of Germany for a wedding, near-ish to Leipzig, and at the venue one of the employees had a Confederate flag plastered on the back of his van.
What absolute fucking lunacy. Especially since German states of the period were generally pro-Union, unlike Britain and France.
Britain was especially hypocritical for supporting the Confederacy, given how much they actually did do to outlaw international slavery and how much they spent on interdicting it. But they needed that sweet cotton for their factories and they wanted their money back: an interesting fact is that most southern plantation owners were perpetually deeply in debt, to London bankers.
Ohio? My guess is Ohio.
I just don’t understand what makes Nazi idiology attractive to so many people. If I had to guess, I’d say for their “foot soldiers” it might be the strange “logic” of this obtuse ideology that allows people to say: “I’m better than you in every way” - without giving any reasons whatsoever and therefore even if the people in question have nothing at all to show for themselfs. In case of their leaders, the only ones that actually profit, I do kinda understand: It’s plain and simple unscrupulous lust for power and influence. In both cases: uncivilized and disgusting.
They like to fantasize about killing people they don’t like, and while normal people react to this with horror, other Nazis applaud and encourage them.
Never underestimate group membership and sense of belonging. Add a dash of getting to feel superior to others and seeing a what they think is a solution to what they think are the cause of their woes (i.e. minorities, jews, oddly-shaped rocks, etc.) is a powerful lure (even if those “problems” aren’t actual problems, but they have successfully been fooled into so thinking).
In case of their leaders, the only ones that actually profit, I do kinda understand: It’s plain and simple unscrupulous lust for power and influence.
The leaders and vanguard of fascism are typically small capitalists; they’ve been privileged by society, but at the same time they’re victim of the whim of the markets. Such people will never believe the problem is capitalism, since that system rewarded them so much, so they’ll grasp at other solutions, such as jews for not doing capitalism correctly, or some vague moral degeneration, or communist saboteurs, or some combination thereof.
Look at the makeup of jan 6ers. There’s trade shows with fewer car dealership owners.
Imagine being just the worst fat and ugly white man.
Then you learn there are people who will lie to you that you’re better and more handsome than even the most handsome of anyone of another ethnicity.
Idk that’s just my guess, as I’ve never had feelings like that, but a lot of the neonazis I knew of were ugly af and even if they weren’t, they thought they were.
So essentially Nazism and the like prey on unhealthy psyches, as there’s nothing they could appeal to in a healthy one.
Aesthetically and in philosophy I had sympathies at some point.
To me personally it was the fact that large parts of humanity already carry that ideology. Like people pretty normal about very Nazi things when those are not called Nazi, who’d pretend to be so virtuous and judgemental when someone touches Nazi stuff more openly. And about crimes not unique to Nazis. And other formalism.
So it was just “the world around us is Nazi anyway, and referencing that directly is more honest than what they do”. I care more about preventing and defeating evil, and do more to those ends, than people running around judging and exposing others. And I don’t like hypocrisy.
that allows people to say: “I’m better than you in every way” - without giving any reasons whatsoever
You don’t need permission to consider yourself better than some other person, nor to add any reasons. Neither do they, but if you really consider yourself better, why would you care? If they really consider themselves better, why would they care? Your and their rights remain the same.
So pride is not a bad thing.
The conflict here arises only with people without dignity, who consider your pride a violation of their personal space somehow. Or that if you are better than someone, you have right to rob them and kill them. Where I live many poor people are like this, sadly. But it doesn’t mean this perception is acceptable.
Which leads us to the point that this perception is exactly how real Nazi-like movements exist. It’s people who want to find an excuse to rob and kill others. Thus they look for any sign that they are better and can do that. They are also cowardly and always seek for some power to back them. Be it real or imagined.
This is also why they like conspiracy theories - every visible conspiracy theory they throw at others has an invisible counterbalance, the conspiracy theory they imagine of the power behind themselves or one they are trying to create. It’s projection.
As you may have noticed, this is something very loosely connected to ideologies. There are many such people with Communist views too, not only Nazi, for example. It’s just people who think that robbing and killing is the only way to gain something.
It stems from poverty and lack of opportunities for honest personal development. You might have heard the saying that “poverty is a mental disorder”? What I’m describing is the subset of poverty that is not a result of real mental disorders. ND people usually don’t think the way I’ve described, and they usually have impaired social connectivity, while this inclination for violence as explanation is something typical for people whose only strong side is social connectivity.
Of course not all such people are poor, just those I’ve met were.
What I really wanted to say is that genuine pride does not fuel this ideology, it’s the opposite.
So if everyone claims to be a Nazi they would stop being Nazis/j
Same with ‘blonde, blue-eyed Aryans’ in Nazi idiology. Aryan weren’t those nordic god-like heroes they’d like. They were Indo-Iranian. So more likely black/brown haired, brown-eyed people.
Tells a big story about those ‘proud people’ back then and now and their brainless idiology.
That one always puzzled me. That was what they wanted yet thier leader had none of those qualities.
And he wasn’t even German.
Standing in America and saying “I am that which Americans brag about killing” has real “that’s a bold move, Cotton” energy.
Deport traitors that hate our freedom. Don’t like it? Leave it.
Whereto though? The rest of us don’t want your scum either, we have enough of our own, that think going back to the political climate of 1933 would be swell.
Russia said they would take them.
Send them to Singapore, I wanna see them complain about all the shit they’ve been crying wolf over for years now
ahem American here, right?.. So why are you thinking I think that’s my problem?
But yes, seriously, I think, where should we escape to?, and it’s populism everywhere.
What about the north pole?
So, international waters?
Good point.
Hmm, Kola?
Noooooo
You guys fight domestic Nazis with memes?!
Usually it’s counter-protests, and the occasional improvised flamethrower.
At least until we can upload punches to the internet
Gotta fight them on all fronts
What other fronts exist? Are they outlawed?
Yes
Zero connected brain cells.
I can fix her
Me too
Cracks knuckles
Me too
Gets baseball bat
Me too
Gets PFA tub and hydrochloric acid
Me third too
lubs your baseball bat (the ‘her’ is long gone by now, it’s just us the fixers)
looks like a neurodivergent elbow. no breading for you.
Does anyone have her onlyfans? Is it @klausbarbiedoll?
How much nationalism do you have to believe to like this meme?
If America is going to own “those wars”; as fucking hilarious as that is, it should also own the genocide it committed against the natives and it should also own the slavery and disenfranchisement of black Americans that lasted centuries.
Dumb fucking Americans.
We do. Why do people keep writing this shit? It’s been taught in schools for decades and we discuss it endlessly.
Its like people see our media blast a person for trying to censor/deny it and instead of seeing the well reported criticism as the typical American stance, they decide everyone MUST be siding with the villian of the story.
Actual idiot take. Go back to school.
I agree with all your points, but would also liketo point out that SOME states coughfloridacoughtexascough are trying to NOT teach those things anymore. THOSE states would like a classroom experience in public schools where very little learning is done.
But don’t worry, they’ll totally ignore the seperation of church and state, so they can lead the school day with a manditory class prayer.
it should also own the genocide it committed against the natives
Absolutely, which is why it’s taught in schools nowadays.
and it should also own the slavery and disenfranchisement of black Americans that lasted centuries.
… what do you think the US Civil War was over, again?
Are you implying slavery and disenfranchisement ended with the civil war?
The last tenet farmer was allowed to leave in the 1960s.
We still have more prisoners than any other country, mostly due to laws heuristically targeting black and poor people. Those prisoners can’t vote, but for representation purposes, their population counts towards the local town/district (which includes those prisoner’s guards). Weirdly similar to the way political representation for enslaved persons worked, minus the 3/5ths part.
As a European I’m fascinated to know where you’re from that has done more to face upto and move away from its past?
America has a complex history but one which it very much faces, it has current problems but ones which it struggles to overcome and right. It is not perfect or pure but nothing ever had been nor ever will be, it’s certainly doing more to grow into a moral and just place than anywhere else I know well.
But the Confederate States of America were also American. It was a civil war after all
The Confederate States were fighting against America, quite explicitly. It wasn’t even a matter of “The Royalists vs. the Parliamentarians” sort of thing where the sides disagreed on who should rule America. The Confederates wanted their land to no longer be American, and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in the attempt.
It was an American civil war between two sides of Americans, the Union and the Confederacy.
It wasn’t even a matter of “The Royalists vs. the Parliamentarians” sort of thing where the sides disagreed on who should rule America. The Confederates wanted their land to no longer be American, and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in the attempt.
Separatists and in this case especially those with family history of separatism can have those different identities, as part of the grander “nation” and that of regional separatist one. I haven’t heard of CSA having a separate sentiment from that, thinking them completely separate from the American identity that encompassed both prior to the civil war. From what I know it was more of a political affair than feeling like the south was a separate “people”.
"O I’m a good old rebel,
Now that’s just what I am.
For this “fair land of freedom”
I do not care a damn.
I’m glad I fought against it,
I only wish we’d won,
And I don’t want no pardon
For anything I done.
I hates the Constitution,
This great republic too,
I hates the Freedmans’ Buro,
In uniforms of blue.
I hates the nasty eagle,
With all his braggs and fuss,
The lyin’ thievin’ Yankees,
I hates 'em wuss and wuss.
I hates the Yankees nation
And everything they do,
I hates the Declaration,
Of Independence, too.
I hates the glorious Union-
'Tis dripping with our blood-
I hates their striped banner,
I fought it all I could
I rode with Robert E. Lee,
For three year near about,
Got wounded in four places
And starved at Point Lookout
I caught the rheumatism
A’ campin’ in the snow,
But I killed a chance o’ Yankees
I’d like to kill some mo’.
Three hundred thousand Yankees
Is stiff in Southern dust,
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us.
They died of Southern fever
And Southern steel and shot,
I wish they was three million
Instead of what we got.
I can’t take up my musket
And fight 'em now no more,
But I ain’t going to love 'em,
Now that is sarten sure,
And I don’t want no pardon
For what I was and am.
I won’t be reconstructed,
And I don’t care a damn."
The idea of a Southern nation was very real, as was the conception of the North as an entirely separate cultural entity. Sherman, writing to some of his Southern friends just before the war, references the idea of Southerners as one people and Northerners as another, even in attempting to dissuade them from secession. You can find plenty of letters that express this sentiment in one form or another throughout the war, though Northern politicians rarely gave voice to it. For obvious reasons. Even today the sentiment in the South lingers in some of the more… backwards areas.
This bitter post-war poem makes a separation between the South and North, with the “Yankees” they feel are running the United States. It doesn’t to me to say the Southerners weren’t American. Both the Northern and Southern identities seem to me to be under the umbrella of being American.
“The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the [Union, American] Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States. [explicitly rejecting the description of the American government as the government of a single nation]”
You people of the South don’t know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it … Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail. [Sherman, describing the South and the North as separate peoples even while still under the unified government]
[T]he contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen Revolted Provinces. These opinions…are the general opinions of the English nation. [The London Times, showing that even amongst foreigners the idea of a Southern nation as distinct from the North were mainstream enough to be understood and embraced]
“And now with my latest writing and utterance, and with what will [be] near to my latest breath, I here repeat, & would willingly proclaim, my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, & to the perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race.” [Edward Ruffin]
You are making a case that the North and South felt separate from each other. And I haven’t doubted that. I’m saying that both of those are under the umbrella of being American. Being American isn’t just one of those, but rather encompassed both. In your examples they’re specifically contrasting those two, not contrasting Southerners with Americans but rather Southerners with Northerners.
I’m not sure if you feel the things you said show that it was Southerner vs American as two separate things or if you’ve misunderstood what I’ve said. But they only show the North/South divide and not one between Americans and Southerners.
“The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States.”
It’s rejecting the idea “national democracy” in favour of “confederate republic of sovereign states”. So it is rejecting the anti-slavery party’s idea of how the government should be. More context would help, since the term “national democracy” doesn’t bring up much. I’d wager it means “the whole country decides together” vs “states decide for themselves”. Southerners were very much in favour of the latter.
[Sherman, describing the South and the North as separate peoples even while still under the unified government]
It seems to be talking of “people of the South” not as an actual separate nation from Americans but as a grouping separate from “people of the North”. And it also doesn’t use the term American. None of your quotes do, actually.
[The London Times, showing that even amongst foreigners the idea of a Southern nation as distinct from the North were mainstream enough to be understood and embraced]
It is just describing a situation where one part wants to separate from an empire. It doesn’t contrast the term American with that of a Southerner or Confederate even. Not only is it lacking context such as the rest of the text but also more importantly the author. And historical context of the UK being pro-CSA to weaken the USA, so having a reason to spur on and support their separatism.
“And now with my latest writing and utterance, and with what will [be] near to my latest breath, I here repeat, & would willingly proclaim, my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, & to the perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race.” [Edward Ruffin]
Yankee is a word for the Northerners. It’s again the same North vs South, not American vs Southerner.
You uh…you stupid?
Solid argument
I concur, you estupid
I would’ve rather had a discussion about this since there seem to be a disagreement but I can’t really expect everyone to bother with that.
