Flag on the Play

This, at right, is the flag of Valhalla. OK, it might be. I need to get Jen and Oni on board with it—they might want more cats on there. Of course.

Our flag is a symbol of what we believe in—cats (with their healing powers and other fabulous qualities), ocean (because DUH, of course!), peace, fishies and plant life. Yeah, we're a gang of hippy/groovy, happy nature types.

You're shocked aren't you. What? No?

If you're gonna fly a flag, know what it means. What does it symbolize? What's the history? Also too, embrace the reality of it.

Let's look at the Nazi flag, designed by Hitler. The Holocaust Encyclopedia has a whole page on the history of the swastika:

The swastika has an extensive history It was used at least 5,000 years before Adolf Hitler designed the Nazi flag. The word swastika comes from the Sanskrit svastika, which means “good fortune” or “well-being." The motif (a hooked cross) appears to have first been used in Neolithic Eurasia, perhaps representing the movement of the sun through the sky.

And then Hitler created a flag.

The swastika would become the most recognizable icon of Nazi propaganda, appearing on the flag referred to by Hitler in Mein Kampf as well as on election posters, arm bands, medallions, and badges for military and other organizations. A potent symbol intended to elicit pride among Aryans, the swastika also struck terror into Jews and others deemed enemies of Nazi Germany.

Hitler wasn't the only one to co-opt the swastika but he's the one who solidly, decisively warped it forever. Anyone sporting this motif, here in western civ anyway, is loudly proclaiming that they're a hate filled, racist piece of rat excrement (not to diss rat shit, mind you).

Which brings me to the Confederate flag. You know, the official flag of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Remember, it was in all the papers? It was during that dreadfully awkward time when the South decided to secede because they wanted to continue to own people, to keep slaves.

You can say it means something else but, honestly now, it doesn’t. I’ve read that some folks say it’s about “heritage.”

Heritage
noun
1. something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth; an inherited lot or portion.
2. something reserved for one:
3. Law. something that has been or may be inherited by legal descent or succession.
    any property, especially land, that devolves by right of inheritance.

White supremacy, slavery, owning human beings. Heritage.

A commenter on a friend’s Facebook page had this, amongst other things to say about the flag of treason:

You know that flags fill people with a lot of emotion. But sometimes when the locals in the South fly it, it is not because they endorse slavery or hatred of Black People. They miss the elevated life style that King Cotton Brought to the South. If you never visited the Antebellum mansions in the Delta and the Port of New Orleans or Galveston it would be tough to understand this. They had an empire. They miss that empire and wealth Cotton brought them big time especially the older families.

Gee mon ami, ya know WHY there were mansions, WHY cotton was king, WHY the South had an “empire?” Slavery!

What is happening right now is this attempted abridgment of free speech in this country with the politically correct movement. This is that: "If you fly a confederate flag you must be a racist!" That is not always true. But PC says "Racist need to be shut down". All of this is starting to shut down the great thing that makes America Great. Free Speach. (sic) It is illogical to think this way.

*SNORT!*

You can say whatever vile, prejudiced shit you want when you’re at home or out at the social club with your buds. You’re free to say whatever you damn please. See? Free “Speach.” You can NOT, however (or should not be able to), spout your tiny minded, venomous, slug trail of an opinion as official, state sanctioned language. This isn’t illogical—it’s the reality of living in a democracy where not every person is the same color, creed or gender. You don’t like having your precious flag ridiculed and insulted? Either don’t fly it or get a thicker skin.

You are free to say whatever the fuck you want and I am free to ridicule your idiocy. Capiche?

I just love when bullies (and bully apologists) claim their free speech is being trampled when those they’re insulting, slamming fight back. OK, by “love” I mean, specifically “Jesus fucking Christ, get a smidge of a clue here, you ignorant, cheese-brained, entitlement rockin’ asswipian dinosaur.”

And for the folks who insist that the Civil War was NOT fought over slavery, here’s a Confederate veteran’s words from the Washington Post article How people convince themselves that the Confederate flag represents freedom, not slavery:

Confederate veteran Ed Baxter unashamedly told a reunion in 1889: “In a word, the South determined to fight for her property right in slaves; and in order to do so, it was necessary for her resist the change which the Abolitionists proposed to make under the Constitution of the United States as construed by them. . . Upon this issue the South went to war, I repeat that the people of the South had the right to fight for their property”. . . . Famed Confederate partisan leader Colonel John S. Mosby was equally forthright. “I’ve always understood that we went to war on account of the thing we quarreled with the North about,” he wrote a former comrade in 1894. “I’ve never heard of any other cause than slavery.”

The Confederate flag belongs in a history museum. It is part of this country's violent, cruel, malevolent past.