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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: 5, Informative) by K_benzoate on Thursday June 25 2015, @04:17AM
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.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @05:38AM
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. :)