So funny to think that a bunch of hokey whitebread punk wannabees from Ireland understood Pride - 31 years ago.
They have that flag. It is the U.S. flag. Southern states, especially North Carolina, have disproportionately high levels of military service. As with native American veterans who fly the US flag at powwows, Southerners fly the US flag with patriotic feeling.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Okay.
You can understand that some people might tire of profiting from it?
Theyâre allowed to be tired of profiting from racism. And stop.
then they should be frequented by apeople.
Oh, people are political⌠almost like the words are somehow⌠related.
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The people you were deeply offending back then, were that sophisticated, back then.
You canât go back and apologize. I also see you also arenât here for that, today. So, good luck with that obvious lack of baggage you donât have.
I understand and agree, at least in principle, and I have no problem with giant, market-dominating zaibatsus like Amazon choosing what they buy and sell.
But I donât believe Amazon and eBay are taking any sort of moral stance here. I think they did the math and calculated that theyâd make more profit from the free advertising they get by banning confederate merch than theyâd get by continuing to carry it. Itâs just a Fight Club formula.
And I suspect the tired, footsore people I see walking to work at Amazon every morning (apparently they canât afford cars on Amazon wages, nor can they afford to live closer to Amazonâs local satanic mill) would be a little skeptical of the idea that Amazon cares about social issues to the exclusion of profit, but I also suspect they canât openly say so if they expect to retain their jobs.
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You say that as though I disagree with you, or like I think that isnât obviously true?
Well, it appears as though, perhaps, your suspicion is all it takes to rouse your indifference. Sorry it makes you uncomfortable. Your skepticism is noted, but Iâm not sure these folks have made the arguments youâre swatting at.
They decided not to do it. I have no problem with a KKK bookstore not selling Howard Zinn, soâŚ
I thought the general American consensus on the issue of how to honor veterans was to always âSupport Our Troopsâ even if you donât support the war? Wouldnât it be logical to afford the same kind of honor to the people who fought for slavery as to the people who fought for stealing Iraqâs oil and destabilizing the entire region?
I prefer memorials for dead soldiers that donât condone/glorify/etc. what they were fighting for. Rather than celebrating them for being âheroesâ, it involves pitying them for having fallen victim to a collective madness that made them want to kill people flying a different scrap of cloth. And, of course, those memorials donât feature any flags.
Given some aspects of US foreign policy, âThe American flag is the symbol of freedom and democracyâ is beginning to sound like âActually, itâs all about ethics in governmentâ.
But - good news: The US flag doesnât need to stand for Freedom and Democracy. It stands for the United States of America. America has done a few bad things, but America has also made great contributions to the cause of freedom and democracy, so Americans get to be proud of that. And itâs a nice place with lots of nice people. That should really be enough.
A flag always stands for the entirety of the people that gather under it. The people themselves donât get a say in what the flag means, only in what they do. (Guess what that says about the confederate flagâŚ)
Were you agreeing, or were you stating that my position is so much different from yours that you find it ridiculous? It must be the former. Because the latter would be ridiculous ;-).
Nononononono⌠I am agreeing with you, and I am not indifferent! I apologize if my cynicism caused me to come off that way.
I do think that when corporations effectively own government, to the point where they write legislation and it is passed despite the opposition of the majority of citizens, we need to be very very careful about saying âcorporations donât have to follow the same rules as governmentâ. But I donât think the remedy for such situations is to force Amazon to allow objectionable speech, instead I think the remedy is to vigorously dismantle any corporation large and powerful enough to override representative government.
Is that what happened here?
Whatever you say, boss.
That does sounds like a more worthwhile sort of memorial, but I donât recall ever seeing one. Can you point us to one or more, please?
No, theyâre not allowed to stop. BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE CENSORSHIP!
And you are not allowed to stop, either. BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE CENSORSHIP!
So, keep posting, citizen. We are watching you.
Right now.
Start typing.
Â
NOW.
I already was typing, we were both typing⌠we were typing⌠in stereo.
STOP STEREOTYPING OTHERMICHAEL
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In fairness, the rising sun flag is still actively used by the current state in only a slightly altered form for their self-defense forces. It goes back to the Edo period and it was not representative of a complete ideology in the same way the Nazi or Confederate flags were. At most, it represents an empire, and Japan still has an emporer. When used by the Japanese far-right itâs more like skinhead-appropriated Celtic symbolism, since it still has connotations of luck and prosperity in Japanese culture.
The Soviet flag also represents more than just Stalin-style oppression. That flag was around for a while after him, and represents, at least in principle, workers and communism rather than purges and censorship. I just feel like the comparisons are weak. Itâs kind of like pretending the American flag unambiguously represents NSA eavesdropping. And trust me when I say that a lot of people the world over find the American flag offensive.
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Donât know if there are any in America, the ânormalâ level of military hero-worship is quite different from what Iâm used to in Austria.
Our war memorials were often built sometime after WW1, and sometimes more names were added after WW2. They are often found on graveyards. Every small village has one.
But Iâd basically nominate three categories:
1. The traditional ones. The political left doesnât like these. The problem with them: They still have language referring to the dead soldiers as âheroesâ on them. I still nominate them because the âhero-worshipâ is still very low-key by American standards, and because the vast majority of the people passing the memorial donât feel the kind of militaristic pride that might originally have been intended.
Church wall in Dorf an der Pram, Austria, a village with 234 inhabitants. The inscription in the center means âTo the honor of our heroesâ; the slabs on the left contain the names of fallen (âGefalleneâ) and missing (âVermissteâ) WW2 soldiers; WW1 is on the right.
2. The neutral ones.
This one in Bad Waltersdorf, Austria (Pop. 963). The text reads âWorld War.â; âThe parish of Bad Waltersdorf to its victimsâ; âErrected 1921â, and then a list of names.
3. The anti-war ones. The political right doesnât like these.
A memorial in Vienna for the heroes who died as soldiers of the Wehrmacht. Yes, they were heroes. Their superior officers disagreed, though. This is a memorial for deserters and other victims of NS military justice.
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Not to my knowledge, nor did I say it did. Câmon, work with me here.
Others in this conversation were pointing out that when a small group of corporate entities completely dominates a market channel, they are able to suppress expression within that channel in ways that would be a violation of free speech rights if the US government did it.
If we are going to elect morons who will hand over all our governmental functions to corporations, which seems to be the case since TPA and TPP and ACA and the Cheney Nuke Rules were all literally written by non-governmental bodies, then we should probably start thinking now about how that will warp our ability to exercise our rights.
I have no attachment to the confederate battle flag, or the âloser flagâ as I like to call it. I donât care if other people can buy it, because that lets me know who the losers are before they show up with a flaming cross on my lawn. Nonetheless I think the people who are making these points about freedom of expression have a valid concern. And again, I would prefer to solve the problem by going all George Washington and castrating the corporations, rather than forcing businesses to sell things they donât want to. If the market was actually regulated by representative government for the benefit of society, none of this would matter.
But there is no such small group of corporate entities. You are arguing potential theory, which is correct, as far as gedankenexperiments and noodly navel-gazing goes. Absolutely correct for the noodles. Not reflectively of our current market realities whatsoever.
You can still get Confederate flags on Alibaba, for example:
You can even get ârealâ confederate flags: This product is no longer available.
This product is no longer available.
You can even get them eco-friendly: This product is no longer available.
Some of them are⌠questionable:
I daresay that there will still be a thriving culture of people selling these flags at flea markets, gun-shows, sporting events, unlicensed sidewalk vendors, pop-up Canal-street storefronts, back-alley Chinatown markets and the like. All of these micro-channels exist today independently of such a theoretical small group of corporate entities, but would be subject to government suppression is such suppression occured. So, thereâs an argument against the noodly navel-gazing theorists.
