The Southern Swastika

What if I make a Nazi flag with inverted colors as an ironic political statement?

Walmart makes ISIS Flag cake. Oops.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/.../confederate-flag-isis-walmart-cake/29495379/

Devils advocate: everyone recognizes the confederate flag, but not many people read Arabic.
That said, give it a few years, that situation will be flipped right around.

Yeah, I realize some goober thought he was arranging a clever "gotcha," but all he really proved was that hardly anybody knows what the ISIS flag looks like.

Not that that'll stop the Noise Machine from shrieking about the "double standard" for days on end, of course.

I used to hardly ever see a confederate flag. Today, I saw at least six or seven.

The world is full of people with meaningless lives who when told "don't be an asshole" suddenly feel that being an asshole gives purpose to their lives for the very first time.

I have no problem with it as a Civil War allagory since in this case they were not, as far as we ever knew, fighting an ignoble cause.

Indeed, the implication was that the Alliance was newly forming and they said "count us out" rather than rebeling against an established union. I don't think they were ever referred to as rebels.

Well, it's not so much an allagory of the war itself, but rather to the western mythology of the former Confederate moving West to get away from a government he doesn't respect, while - having been on the losing side (and having lost his faith along the way) looking inward and asking "What's left that's worth fighting for?"

One of the great tragedies, to me, about Firefly is that they cut the scenes in the pilot that showed Mal as a believer in God as well as the cause. When the cause was lost, he lost faith in God and the whole context of the series, for him, was what does a man do with himself when he's lost everything he believes in? Thus, Serenity was a perfect conclusion to that arc in that he again found a truth to believe in and a cause to fight for.

So to me, the show hits on many touchpoints from American mythology about the 19th century and Mal is an allegory of the former Confederate soldier who is, basically, without a country he can believe in. Without the ugliness of slavery coloring our perception of him

Cut from the aired version? Because the original pilot in the boxed sets have those scenes.

Oh, but the Brown Coats couldn't have possibly been influenced by the Confederates because the Brown Coats were good and the Confederates were bad and they didn't have space ships in 1862 so there's no historical context.

No need to rehash Wordforge history, there.

Are you sure? The boxed set I have shows the "Mal kissing the cross" scene and the "God? Who's colors is he flying?" scenes as both deleted. The latter for length IIRC.

There was a reference briefly in the aired version that refereed to his being a believer, but nothing as overt as those two. I haven't watched them since I was in the hospital but I'm pretty sure...

The DVD boxed set I have definitely has the cross bit included. The colors quote is a deleted scene, though.

There's enough of "godly" Mal included in the flashbacks that it contrasts well with the "God ain't allowed on my boat" scene later.

I definitely remember him kissing the cross. But I've seen a lot of versions, so I can't swear where.

Just finished watching Field of Lost Shoes.

Yee-haw!

Interesting tidbit. I used to go into John C Breckinridge's house all the time (he's from Lexington Kentucky, while Jefferson Davis went to college here). Breckinridge came in second in the 1860 election (Lincoln beat him) before becoming a major general in the Confederate Army, later becoming their Secretary of War.

That must have been terrifying for you.

Cognitive dissonance is a real thing.

There's a video of an interview with her at the link.

Yeah,Muad used to trot out the black Confederate soldiers as some kind of justification for..whatevee.

No doubt, I'm sure many did join the Confederate side in place of rich masters or to actually, earnestly fight for thir homeland. It changes nothing about the deep roots of slavery being the thing that 13 states seceded over.

What I find disturbing is that so many people believe slavery does not exist anymore.

I think they believe it, but figure it's 3rd World/sandbox shit so it's expected. The US should be (should have been) above all that behavior - the US should be held to a higher standard. Obviously we were not at the beginning. Anyone who thinks The North had no involvement is deluded however. True The North ended it, but for about 80 years our entire young nation practiced slavery. So I will relate it to two buddies who started smoking at the same time. One buddy finally quits smoking at age 50 and now preaches to the remaining smoker about the evils of smoking.

Bubba Watson has the very first General Lee - and he's painting over the confederate flag on it. Priceless.

actually, it's not JUST 3rd world shitholes...even if most folks think it is

Wrong flag, dumbass. Not you Dickynoo. Whoever made that ignorant ass image.

But related. That was this flag.
which is bordered in a huge white field.

They couldn't use it much in battle because if the wind died down in collapsed around the flag pole and looked like it was just a white flag of surrender.

Of course they're related. They were both flown by the Confederacy. I'll just never cease to be suprised by the ignorance over the "confederate flag".

That's probably the result of all the one-time Confederate states currently flying the battle flag, instead of the actual Confederate flag, and speaking of it as if it were THE Confederate flag.

Not that that's an excuse, but what one-time Confederate states currently fly the battle flag other than South Carolina?