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posted by martyb on Thursday June 11 2020, @01:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the A-See-Change dept.

Many sources are reporting what we can read at ABC News,

NASCAR banned the Confederate flag from its races and properties on Wednesday, formally distancing itself from what for many is a symbol of slavery and racism that had been a familiar sight at stock car events for more than 70 years.

The move comes amid social unrest around the globe following the death in police custody of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in Minneapolis. Protests have roiled the nation for days and Confederate monuments are being taken down across the South — the tradtiional fan base for NASCAR.

[...] The issue was pushed to the fore this week as Bubba Wallace, NASCAR's lone black driver, called for the banishment of the Confederate flag and said there was "no place" for them in the sport. At long last, NASCAR obliged.

"The presence of the confederate flag at NASCAR events runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry," NASCAR said. "Bringing people together around a love for racing and the community that it creates is what makes our fans and sport special. The display of the confederate flag will be prohibited from all NASCAR events and properties."

[...] The move was announced before Wednesday night's race at Martinsville Speedway where Wallace, an Alabama native, was driving a Chevrolet with a #BlackLivesMatter paint scheme. Wallace got a shoutout on Twitter from several athletes, including NBA star LeBron James, for using the paint scheme in the race.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by epitaxial on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:56PM (22 children)

    by epitaxial (3165) on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:56PM (#1006410)

    You mean the losers who fought a war in order to keep slaves?

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  • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:22PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:22PM (#1006434)

    It is a bad omen when you forget who lost in your party's previous uprising, while raring for a new one.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:43PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:43PM (#1006499)

      No film at Eleven.

      That trope is so tired.

      The racists were abandoning the Democratic party as far back the 1940s.

      Johnson's New Society, The Civil Rights and Voting Rights [wikipedia.org] Acts plus Nixon's "Southern Strategy" [wikipedia.org] sealed the deal.

      More actual history rather than your bullshit:
      https://whyy.org/articles/fifty-years-ago-civil-rights-and-the-newly-conservative-gop/ [whyy.org]
      https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30011020-democracy-in-chains [goodreads.com] (If you're functionally illiterate, which seems likely, you can watch a discussion here [c-span.org])
      https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/698456 [uchicago.edu]

      This is *opinion* and shouldn't be construed as history, but it clarifies quite a few things that are wrong with your bullshit:
      https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-republican-party-was-founded-to-fight-white-supremacy-heres-how-its-embraced-it-now [thedailybeast.com]

      Another discussion which says things you don't want to hear:
      https://www.npr.org/transcripts/805713126 [npr.org]

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:09PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:09PM (#1006569)

        the party of bigots remains the party of bigots. Recoloring your bigotry means nothing.

        The inverse racism is NOT an inverse of racism. Same as a mirrored image is still the same thing, in a reflection.
        An inverse of racism is the ABSENCE of racism. Totally unpossible when you need bigots flocking to your flag, isn't it?

        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @10:28PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @10:28PM (#1006632)

          That's adorable!

          Are you available for parties?

          • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:22PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:22PM (#1006653)

            Feeling smart again today?

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by AssCork on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:22PM (15 children)

    by AssCork (6255) on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:22PM (#1006435) Journal

    You mean the losers who fought a war in order to keep slaves?

    Hole E. Shite. Another failure of our public education system.

    The "War Between The States" was about Rights. Specifically a State's Rights versus the Federal Government - Like the right for the Federal Government to demand tax money from the citizens of a State. The right of a Federal Government to pass laws that impact every state. The right of the Federal Government to withhold said collected tax money from States that pass laws Big Brother doesn't like.

    To put it more simply;

    The Civil War was about a State's Right to legalize Marijuana versus the Federal Government's Right to make random plants just as illegal as Heroin.

    FYI: Slavery was already passe at that point, and there were much, much fewer slave owners than before (not that there was ever a large number of slave owners in the first place). Lincoln was advised that he would probably have a bill on his desk during his term to outlaw slavery, but Lincoln threatened the Confederacy with it as a barganing chip to try and prevent them from seceding from the Union.

    And before you give me any "citation needed" bullshit, you've been using google since you were 10 years old - go read a fucking WikiPedia article yourself, god dammit.

    --
    Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:55PM (9 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:55PM (#1006450)

      Sorry, you've fallen for Confederate attempts to re-write history. Try reading some actual well-researched history rather than the propaganda you've been swallowing.

      It was about one specific "right" - the right to keep fellow Americans as slaves.

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:03PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:03PM (#1006456)

        Go easy on these fools, many of them came from areas in the US that have schools teaching "states rights" and "war of northern aggression" as the reality of the Civil War. So they went most of their adult lives angry at all the liberal assholes trying to spin their states as nasty slavers, and now that the vast majority of people know better it is tough for them to drop their long held school taught beliefs and realize their community lied through their teeth.

        The Confederacy was about owning slaves and white supremacy.

        That is a tough pill for people to swallow when they've been taught everything was hunky-dorie their whole lives.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:39PM (6 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:39PM (#1006493)

        Wow, you are REALLY ignorant. STUPENDOUSLY ignorant.
        A key factor in the run up to the Civil War WAS slavery, but not as you are saying.
        Lesson: The USA was in a period of expansion, taming and settling the rest of the continent (and clearing Indians off it, by the US Govt).
        The question was: would the NEW states admitted be free or slave? There was no push at all from the US govt to "abolish slavery" where it already existed.
        See Missouri Compromise:
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Compromise [wikipedia.org]

        This and other issues such as taxation and protectionist policies forcing Southern states to sell cotton to Northern mills where they could otherwise have gotten a better price from more sales to Britain (the big cotton consumer in Europe, probably the world [someone can check this], with 80% of its cotton supplied by the South) lead to a rivalry between the North and South. The two regions were very different in their economies and demography.

        So no, the Civil War was not fought to "free the slaves." This is the propaganda taught to justify putting down an independence movement, and that doesn't sit well with our founding myth of a nation that fought a war of independence with Britain so we could be free. (Bear in mind that we were a slave nation during our time as rebel Colonials, with many Yankee states [Connecticut, etc.] being slave states!)

        So the South made a bid for independence by seceding. Lincoln entered the Civil War devoted to keeping the USA in one piece, not eliminating slavery.
        Proof in his own words:
        "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that...."

        The Emancipation Proclamation was only issued well into the war in 1863, and it only applied to the slave states that were NOT in the Union. It was an attempt to foment a slave uprising in the rebel states (but not the slaveholding Union states) and to retcon a moral cause for the North which was getting tired of fighting as invaders and losing.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:58PM (4 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:58PM (#1006592)

          > So no, the Civil War was not fought to "free the slaves."

          For the south, the war was entirely about maintaining slavery.

          Initially, some in the north, including Lincoln were not eager to free enslaved people, but facts on the ground and the need for additional troops changed, at least, Lincoln's mind. But, even if Lincoln wasn't among them, there were a large number of Republicans, in the north, who were abolitionists (before that party switched from a left progressive party to the far-right racist fascist party it is today).

          So, the north's motivations were not all goodness and righteousness, but the south's were entirely evil and vile.

          • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @10:09PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @10:09PM (#1006620)

            "were entirely evil and vile"

            That isn't fair, they had other reasons but the problem is slavery was such a part of society that the overlap means they couldn't be untangled completely.

            That said, just like we don't bother discussing the valid reasons the German public allowed the Nazis to come into power we in the US shouldn't bother wondering what valiidity there was to the pro-slavery Confederacy.

            If some of the same issues are around today like state's rights then those can be addressed separate from the Confederate flag and the slave owning assholes that split the country.

            • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @10:33PM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @10:33PM (#1006635)

              The real reason we know the South was morally wrong is because they lost the war, and the winner writes the history books.

              If the South had won (meaning they got their independence), they would be a nation that fought for its freedom first from an oppressive United Kingdom, and a second time from an equally despotic empire called the United States that sought to deny them their freedom to leave the Union just as they had entered it, as free states. Slavery would have ended before the 19th Century was over due to increased mechanization as mechanical harvesters replaced slaves by being cheaper and much faster, allowing greater profit. You'd still have the problem of a redundant black workforce to deal with and its anybody's guess how that would have ended. Maybe they would've been sent back to Africa in Liberia.

              Point is, we (the USA) won our independence from Britain, so we claim moral superiority. If we had lost, the history books would have written about a war cooked up by Britain's age old enemy France using ungrateful, easily manipulated Colonists.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @09:55AM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @09:55AM (#1006805)

                You mean the "French and Indian War"? Of course, with such a wacko reading of the scumsucking treason of the slave-owning south, I guess you ♪♫ "don't know much about history"♪♫ [songlyrics.com]

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @02:49PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @02:49PM (#1006885)

                  If you are an American, your country was founded on treason by fighting a war of secession against Britain.
                  The North (New England in particular) was at the forefront of this treason.
                  "Treason" is determined by who loses in a war. If the war is won by their side, they are patriots.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @10:00PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @10:00PM (#1007104)

          Also if any stupid people try to play the "secession wasn't just about slavery" card feel free to use this quote from the vice president of the CSA himself, Alexander "Shitface" Stephens:

          Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:57PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:57PM (#1006515)

        As usual, there are a great many perspectives on any large topic.

        Was the Civil War about slaves? Sure, for some folks - particularly the slaves and the Federals who granted the slaves their freedom - that's a big part of the war.

        Down on the farm, it was a whole lot of us vs. them. Some of my family was quite ashamed that their boy went off to war and drew a pension when it was over - not that they didn't welcome the pension money, just that they didn't want the neighbors knowing which side Johnny fought on when he went off to war (only one side paid a pension.)

        When it was over, it continued to be about us vs. them, and them did plenty of carpet bagging when it was all over - don't kid yourselves: money drove that war as much as it drove any other.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @07:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @07:01PM (#1006520)

      The "States Rights" you refer to wasn't stuff like legalization of marijuana. The "Rights" in question were those that allowed the white residents of those states to own other human beings.

      You are perhaps ignorant or perhaps being disingenuous. This all came to a head after the Kansas-Nebraska Act [historyplace.com] and the huge backlash from that.

      In fact, if you actually *read* the statements of support/secession made by the states that made up the Confederacy, *every single one* made legal slavery the *most important* reason for secession.

      But don't believe me. Read the words of the folks who voted to secede:
      https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states [battlefields.org]
      https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/teaching-resources-for-historians/the-decision-to-secede-and-establish-the-confederacy-a-selection-of-primary-sources [historians.org]

      I'd also point out that there was an economic argument that secessionists/slaveholders made as well: That those enslaved humans represented a market value of USD$4 Billion in 1861 dollars [in2013dollars.com] which would be worth *trillions* today.

      So. Not only were the secessionistS racist scumbags who thought it was okay to own other human beings, they *really* wanted to protect their "investment" which made up the bulk of the wealth in the Confederacy.

      You have been lied to and believed it and/or are lying even though you know the truth. Which one (or both) is it?

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:18PM (2 children)

      by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:18PM (#1006571)

      Hole E. Shite. Another failure of our public education system.

      The "War Between The States" was about Rights. Specifically a State's Rights versus the Federal Government

      I'm sure that you won't be interested in Jon Oliver's Last Week Tonight episode about the Confederacy, but in it he points out that several different Confederate states literally had "one of our core principles is the continuation of slavery" in their constitutions.

      So obviously they were linked somewhat, but you can't claim slavery wasn't a large part of the war.

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @12:47AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @12:47AM (#1006692)

        Just look at the formal declarations as to why they left. Lots of talk about slavery, not so much about state's rights. Starting with Mississippi:

        A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

        In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

        Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. [Followed by a listing of attacks on slavery]

        And South Carolina:

        The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

        And Georgia:

        The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. [Followed by a history of anti-slavery actions by the North]

        And Texas:

        Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

        The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States. [Followed, yet again, by a history of anti-slavery legislation and policies]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @10:49PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @10:49PM (#1007126)

          Confederate apologists:

          Only an idiot would claim it was about slavery.

          Confederates:

          Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @03:49AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @03:49AM (#1006759)

      Read "The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States". It's all about slavery and you're an ignorant asshole.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @05:51AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @05:51AM (#1006773)

    Can't we all just come together and agree finally the South is shit and ya'll are jealous and want to live in California?