Sen. Biden says.........

[MStuart]

Edited from a longer article....

Biden calls for removal of Confederate flag
POSTED: 5:27 p.m. EST, January 15, 2007

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) -- Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democratic presidential hopeful joining fellow Sen. Christopher Dodd at Martin Luther King Jr. holiday events, said Monday he thinks the Confederate flag should be kept off South Carolina's Statehouse grounds.

"If I were a state legislator, I'd vote for it to move off the grounds -- out of the state," the Delaware senator said before the civil rights group held a march and rally at the Statehouse here to support its boycott of the state.

More than six years after the Confederate flag was taken down from the South Carolina Capitol dome, its location in front of the Statehouse remains an issue at the heart of events celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy.

Jim Hanks stood across from the Statehouse with about 35 Confederate flag supporters.

"We love this flag. We love our heritage," said Hanks, of Lexington.

Some carried signs saying: "South Carolina does not want Chris Dodd," referring to the Connecticut senator who, along with Biden, attended the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People rally at the Statehouse.

Hanks said that Dodd, Biden and other Democrats running for president "would probably say most anything if it would get them votes."

In 2000, as the NAACP began its South Carolina tourism boycott, the flag was flying on the Capitol dome and in House and Senate chambers. Legislators agreed to take the flag down that year, but raised the banner outside the Statehouse beside a Confederate soldiers monument.

In November, Biden joked about South Carolina's Confederate past at a Rotary Club meeting in Columbia after organizers said their Christmas party at the Department of Archives and History would include a chance to see the state's original copy of the Articles of Secession.

Biden noted Delaware was "a slave state that fought beside the North. That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South -- there were a couple of other states in the way."

Biden expects legislators here will eventually move the flag. Pointing to his heart, he said, "as people become more and more aware of what it means to African-Americans here, this is only a matter of time."

On Sunday, Dodd told The Associated Press at a King remembrance service in Greenville that the Confederate flag belongs in a museum.

"I don't think it belongs on the Capitol grounds," Dodd said.
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Since Sen. Biden was involved in the plagiarism incident a few years back, I have a hard time taking anything that he says as an "original" thought.

Mark

[tenfed1861]

I can sort of respect Dodd's saying that the flag belongs in a museum. I can even accept taking the battle flag down and putting up a Stars and Bars. But I personally say that if you remove it from the grounds, Native Americans should protest themselves. In their protest (please understand where I am coming from), the American flag is a symbol of hatred. It was the flag used on the Trail of Tears, Sand Creek, Wasatah, Wounded Knee just to name a few cases of genocide. It flys over the oppression sites called reservations. Who has a better argument? Those whose ANCESTORS suffered from slavery but yet many of whom supported the CSA? Or those who still suffer and face genocide?

At least they did not sully up Martin Luther King's great name and get angry, violent, and vandalise the monument from how the article sounds.

Cullen Smith

[Bloated_Corpse]

...American flag is a symbol of hatred. It was the flag used on the Trail of Tears, Sand Creek, Wasatah, Wounded Knee just to name a few cases of genocide. It flys over the oppression sites called reservations.

If genocide had really been the goal of the United States there would be no native American Indians alive today to run the casinos at all those "oppression sites."

[Wounded_Zouave]

I Who has a better argument? Those whose ANCESTORS suffered from slavery but yet many of whom supported the CSA?

"Many" supported the CSA? Is that modern myth still being trumpeted?

"A racist fabrication has sprung up in the last decade: that the Confederacy had "thousands" of African- American slaves "fighting" in its armies during the Civil War.

Unfortunately, even some African-American men today have gotten conned into Putting on Confederate uniforms to play "re-enactors" in an army that fought to ensure that their ancestors would remain slaves.

There are two underlying points of this claim: first, to say that slavery wasn't so bad, because after all, the slaves themselves fought to preserve the slave South; and second, that the Confederacy wasn't really fighting for slavery. Both these notions may make some of our contemporaries feel good, but neither is historically accurate..."

Link: http://members.aol.com/neoconfeds/trclark.htm

[Malingerer]

"There are two underlying points of this claim: first, to say that slavery wasn't so bad, because after all, the slaves themselves fought to preserve the slave South; and second, that the Confederacy wasn't really fighting for slavery. Both these notions may make some of our contemporaries feel good, but neither is historically accurate..."

Right on. These are two of the most specious arguments offered by Southern appologists today. The facts speak abundantly to the contrary: 1. In the winter of 1864 Patrick Cleburne tried to introduce a measure to allow Blacks to fight for the Confederacy in exchange for their freedom - not only was he censured - all information regarding his ideas were quashed. Blacks were only officially welcomed into the Confederate Army a month before the collapse of the Confederacy - and even then, with utter ruin and defeat staring them in the face the measure barely passed. 2. Slavery was must have been bad enough to induce thousands (if not tens of thousands) to flee northward for freedom - enough ran away to cause southern congressmen to insist on the fugitive slave law to both become enacted and enforced. In fact it was this issue of enforcement that caused many slave owners consider the North to be a hostile country.
So,what we get now is this PC - 'it wasnt about slavery' watered down version of our history just so we Southerners can feel better about ourselves and our ancestors. I can take my history warts and all. No moonlight and magnolias for me.

Peter Julius,
Bryson City,NC

[Spare_Man]

So,what we get now is this PC - 'it wasnt about slavery' watered down version of our history just so we Southerners can feel better about ourselves and our ancestors. I can take my history warts and all. No moonlight and magnolias for me.

We all of go through various stages in our interest in the Civil War and they are not unlike the stages of grief:

1. DENIAL ("The south wasn't fighting for slavery!")

2. ANGER ("You dirty Yankee, listen to me! The south was NOT fighting for slavery!")

3. BARGAINING ("Look, not everyone in the south was fighting for slavery. See, even many blacks supported the south. Many, many, many. See? Look, if you'll admit the north wasn't fighting for freedom, I'll admit that some people in the south were fighting for slavery. Some. No all, of course.")

4. DEPRESSION ("Just let me sleep a little longer, please. This arguement has made me very tired.")

5. ACCEPTANCE ("OK, you got me. The evidence is clear. The Raison d’Être of the Confederacy was to preserve, perpetuate and expand slavery. The moonlight and magnolias of the anti-Bellum south is a myth. The Civil War was a horrible conflagration, a slaughter, a holocaust. Both sides committed attrocities at one time or another and all people of all races suffered horribly. I hope and pray it never happens again." )

Unfortunately, many seemed locked in the DENIAL, ANGER and BARGAINING stages and never advance out of the "Romantic Period" where we often begin our Civil War journey.

[Jim Mayo]

Just remember, slavery was legal in the United States and that includes the north.

Many of the non-slave states had laws to keep the negros out. Sounds like it's not only a Southern thing. There is plenty of blame to go around but the winners write the history.

[Spare_Man]

There is plenty of blame to go around but the winners write the history.

Which lends truth to the old saying that "the North won the war, but the South won the peace." Almost as soon as the war ended southern apologists began writing the mythological history of "the lost cause" to justify plunging the country into a fratricidal war. A very good analysis can be found in this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Lost-Caus.../dp/0253338220

[Wounded_Zouave]

Just remember, slavery was legal in the United States and that includes the north.

Many of the non-slave states had laws to keep the negros out. Sounds like it's not only a Southern thing. There is plenty of blame to go around but the winners write the history.

This is an overly pat, sound-byte answer to a debate that cannot be won by broad-brush generalizations. It completely overlooks historical events such as the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Fugitive Slave Law, the Dred Scott Supreme Court Decision, the Underground Railroad, the Abolitionist Movement and a host of other issues that were very complex and deeply meaningful to the people of those times.

[Malingerer]

"Just remember, slavery was legal in the United States and that includes the north.

Many of the non-slave states had laws to keep the negros out. Sounds like it's not only a Southern thing. There is plenty of blame to go around but the winners write the history."

OK. Time for a little history lesson - No slavery, at the time of the civil war, was not legal up north. Most northern states had outlawed slavery long before. No northern state had a prohibition on Black immigration and several states - including Ohio, Connecticut, New York, and Massachusits had even established public schools for Blacks.
Was there racism up north? You bet - tons. Blame to go around? Plenty. But, there can be no doubt that the founding seven states of the Confederacy seceded in order to protect slavery - they said so themselves. For crying out loud read a book sometime.
One last thing: I'm a Southerner, proud of it, and I can't remember ever having been prohibited from writing or publishing works on Civil War history. This buisness of only the victors writing the history is so much nonsense.

Peter Julius,
Bryson City, NC