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In South Carolina, the governor has called for the Confederate flag to stop flying over the capitol. The governors of Virginia and North Carolina quickly declared that they would remove the flag from state license plates. Meanwhile, several of the country's top retailers -- including eBay and Amazon -- announced in quick succession that they would stop selling Confederate flag merchandise. Now MJ Lee reports at CNN that the debate over the Confederate flag is the most recent and vivid illustration of how changes in the business community can influence and pressure politics. "What you are seeing is a broad, acknowledgment across both the consumer, the political and the business community that that particular emblem is no longer part of something that should be a state-issued emblem," says GOP strategist Scott Jennings.
Walmart, Amazon, eBay and Sears announced within the span of one day that they would ban the sale of Confederate flag merchandise from their stores, saying they had no intention of offending customers. As Walmart CEO Doug McMillon put it, the decision was straightforward: "We want everybody to feel comfortable shopping at Walmart." Corporate and business leaders say that the abandoning the flag is a step towards inclusiveness for a region that has long struggled to shed negative images. "The business community -- they have a lot of say and power all over the country, whether it's on religion or ethnicity or LGBT issues," says Ralph Northam. "When you're running a business, you have to have the doors open and welcome diversity."
takyon: Alabama Governor Orders Removal Of Confederate Flags From Capitol
'Dukes of Hazzard' toy car General Lee loses its Confederate flag
Note: These moves are in response to the events in Charleston.
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday June 24 2015, @11:53PM
> why teaching history is important and censorship is bad
I'm really close to earn a Godwin point to illustrate how teaching history is not incompatible with not flying the symbols of hatred in the face of the minority that was oppressed in their name.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Yog-Yogguth on Sunday June 28 2015, @05:46PM
I'll Godwin away on your behalf then :D I think Godwin's Law expired at the turn of the millennium anyway, not that I knew.
I'll assume you meant the German bans? But did the German ban on the swastika etc. help? Banning a symbol that didn't belong to the nazis in the first place only made them steal even more symbols including Celtic crosses, stylized triscelions (like the (Gaelic) Manx flag), the Norwegian flag etc.
Strange how easy it is to think that banning symbols, thoughts, and opinions will work out to anyones advantage but it never really does. Not only is it superficial and lazy and counterproductive but it's also fascist and there's not much fucking point if the alternatives are fascism vs. fascism. In addition to that the confederate flag does not automatically signify a support for slavery or it would never have stayed in the state flags. Thinking otherwise is mostly just prejudice: it is a symbol of rebellion, self-determination, and cultural identity i.e. “the South”. It wouldn't surprise me much if all in all it's less racist than the average northern State dinner party.
Some of the people who use it will be total assholes and bigots, I've seen that and certainly won't condone it, but some who use it won't be.
And while we're in the neighborhood: the red star and the hammer and sickle are also symbols of hatred to many people (which is why at least around where I live many communists have stopped using them, they struggle hard enough to distance themselves from the Soviet Union without adding that burden), as is the stars and stripes now.
So will Amazon and the others stop selling merchandise with the US flag? Because by their own “logic” they must.
They also tried doing this with the “Don't Thread On Me” Gadsen flag [wikipedia.org] not long ago but stumbled, this time they managed not to stumble.
Forget HOPE [wikipedia.org], it was always about OBEY [wikipedia.org].
Don't get me wrong, I was suckered too.
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