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posted by takyon on Wednesday June 24 2015, @11:00PM   Printer-friendly

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.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by curunir_wolf on Thursday June 25 2015, @01:13AM

    by curunir_wolf (4772) on Thursday June 25 2015, @01:13AM (#200703)
    Ignorance. That's the only way to explain all the people that misunderstand the 3/5ths compromise. News flash: It was the SOUTH that wanted slaves counted, the North did not want them to be counted as persons at all. The compromise was 3/5ths.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @02:20AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @02:20AM (#200731)

    Yes they wanted them counted as non-voters. I don't see how any of that is relevant to this debate. Since I am clearly "ignorance" perhaps you can explain your news flash.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by K_benzoate on Thursday June 25 2015, @04:17AM

    by K_benzoate (5036) on Thursday June 25 2015, @04:17AM (#200782)

    The South wanted to eat their cake and have it too. They wanted slaves counted towards their population totals in order to weight their influence in the House of Representatives. So they wanted them included as full citizens when apportioning representation, but did not want to let them have full rights as citizens. The Northern states recognized the rank hypocrisy and inhumanity in this and protested. But the moral solution would have been a non-starter for the Southern slave-states (imagine that, slavers aren't very ethical people). So in order to salvage any deal at all, we got the 3/5 compromise which no one was really happy with.

    So don't let's forget the caveat to Southern wishes that slaves were represented; that it was wanted so that Southern states' influence would be greater and their system of chattel slavery could be strengthened. They were spreading the horrors of slavery, not the milk of human kindness.

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    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @05:38AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @05:38AM (#200800)

      But do not forget the shipping triangle with slaves:
      1) South and Caribbean sell slaves and pick-up goods for North, like sugar and cotton.
      2) North drop goods and pickup goods for Africa, like alcohol made from the sugar, or cloth form the cotton.
      3) Africa drop goods and pickup slaves.

      Oh those ships... mainly owned by the Northerners. :)

  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday June 25 2015, @08:42AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Thursday June 25 2015, @08:42AM (#200846) Journal
    Well, sort of. The slaves themselves didn't get to vote, their owners did. The people in the north (who mostly didn't own slaves) thought that people who weren't allowed to vote shouldn't count when calculating representation in Congress. The people in the south thought that if you owned 100 slaves then you should count as 101 people.
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