Badger Industries wrote:The Palmetto wrote:My question is what the Confederacy has to do with Nazism. Don't get me wrong, the Confederacy was definitely founded upon the values of slavery and racism, but they had no association with Nazism and Nazism had no association with the Confederacy. If they really cared about their Southern heritage, the rioters wouldn't asssociate themselves with an ideology that's irrelevant towards Southern history.
I also heard that there was some anti-Semitic stuff coming from that crowd, what's with that? The Confederacy wasn't specifically anti-Jewish, and as a matter of fact, they had a Jewish member of their Cabinet. They were racist towards blacks, of course, but Jews, not as much.
To me, this looks like a bunch of uneducated racists fighting for something they don't understand. People like these make me feel disappointed and disgusted. Even if it was not intended to be seen as a symbol for white nationalism and racism, it is clear that this monument has become one, and it should be placed in a museum.
For a long time after the American Civil War, there was hardly anyone, Southerner or not, who proudly displayed the flag. It started to be very heavily associated with extreme racism during the rise of the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s when counterprotestors adopted it as a symbol of their movement, their defence being that racial segregation was justified and necessary. Then we also have modern day racists like David Duke who enjoy blurring the line with American racism and Nazi racism.
It was mostly a rhetorical question, I know about all of the corruption of the Confederate battle flag.
I've always been rather annoyed by the misuse of the battle flag to stand for racism, when it just stood for Confederate military groups. More annoying is when people assume it's the national flag, which it wasn't. As a matter of fact, I do believe that the rectangular one is actually most similar to the Confederate Navy. Then again, it's not like most rednecks are educated enough to know about this.