Political Correctness

[willedoo]

Every year, the Russian delegation to the UN General Assembly puts up a draft resolution on combating the glorification of Nazism & Neo-Nazism. The resolution asks member states to pass legislation to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination, and condemns the glorification of the Nazi movement, Neo-Nazism and former members of the Waffen SS organization, as well as revisionism in respect to the Second World War.

 

Sounds ok on the face of it, but like a lot of UN draft resolutions, is a loaded question with the devil in the detail. It passed easily with a majority. Most of the European countries abstained from the vote, and only two countries, Ukraine and the U.S. voted against it. No surprises with Ukraine, the less said the better there. Every year the U.S. votes against it because they think it's not compatible with their First Amendment protection of free speech, and say it has nothing to do with their support for Ukrainian organizations. The U.S. also believes Russia seeks to use the resolution to push disinformation about Neo-Nazi influence in neighbouring countries.

 

The point is, how far does any legislation go, and where do they draw the line. These days we are seeing flea market sellers of WW2 Nazi memorabilia accused of glorifying Nazism.  There are worldwide collectors and researchers of WW2 Nazi militaria and the vast majority by far have a historical interest only and no truck with Nazis. PC is trying to push everything under the carpet and apply one broad stigma. I know re-enactors who will portray a WW2 Luftwaffe General one day at an event, and an American officer the next. That can hardly be seen as glorifying Nazism, but there are elements in society that do see it that way.

 

A similar movement is happening with American Confederate history. Any interest in the Confederate side of things is increasingly being branded as racism. It seems like the day is coming when anyone owning a replica Confederate flag will be considered a racist. It's all getting a bit silly IMO. The PC mob might hit a speedbump if they try taking on the U.S. Civil War re-enactment fraternity as it's quite a big thing in America. You can't educate people and remind them of past wrongs if you hide it all from view and pretend it didn't happen.

Edited December 17, 2020 by willedoo

[old man emu]

It seems a bit silly to draw the UN into that anti-Nazism brawl. Most advanced countries now have their own laws to deal with the myriad forms of discrimination. There is another hidden bit of the agenda. If Russia puts up the draft resolution and it is not passed, then who can legally complain about Russia's many acts of discrimination?

 

As for the collection of memorabilia, the majority of what is collected are simply archeological artifacts, the possessions of the common soldier. With the arrival of the personal metal detector, lots of people are going over battlefields and abandoned military areas to locate things like buttons, buckles, food tins - the normal detritus of the military forces. Should Mein Kampf be banned and destroyed? As a source of historical research leading to answering the Why? of Nazism, it is the original text. If Mein Kampf was totally banned, who could defend the continued printing of the Bible, Torah or Qur'an?

 

Which flag of the Confederate States of America do you want?

  This is the design of the flag from March 1861 to May 1863. Originally there were only 7 stars, but as States joined the number of stars increased until there were 13.

 

 This is the design from May 1863 to 1865. It is called the "Stainless Banner. The image here is misleading because the flag is the same size as the one above, it is just that the white parts don't show here against a white background of the page.

 

 This is the "Blood-stained Banner" adopted in March 1865. The red bar (copied from the French flag) was meant to prevent the "Stainless Banner" looking like a white flag of surrender if the wind was not furling it.

 

What we know as the "Stars and Bars" came about due to the need for a clear flag to be carried into battle as a communication device. At the First Battle of Manassas, near Manassas, Virginia, the similarity between the "Stars and Bars" and the "Stars and Stripes" caused confusion and military problems. Regiments carried flags to help commanders observe and assess battles in the warfare of the era. At a distance, the two national flags were hard to tell apart.  Initially the cross was going to be the Latin Cross, like the cross of St George, but Charles Moise, a self-described "Southerner of Jewish persuasion", liked the design but asked that "... the symbol of a particular religion not be made the symbol of the nation." So the cross was changed to the diagonal design of the Cross of St Andrew - patron of Scotland from whence very many Southerners hailed. The diagonal cross was preferable, he wrote, because "it avoided the religious objection about the cross (from the Jews and many Protestant sects), because it did not stand out so conspicuously as if the cross had been placed upright thus." He also argued that the diagonal cross was "more Heraldic  than Ecclesiastical, it being the 'saltire' of Heraldry, and significant of strength and progress. (A saltire, also called Saint Andrew's Cross or the crux decussata, is a heraldic symbol in the form of a diagonal cross, like the shape of the letter X in Roman type. The word comes from the Middle French sautoir, Middle Latin saltatoria ("stirrup").

 

I find it ironic that those defenders of White supremacy, the KKK, who are anti-Jew, claim a flag whose design was strongly influenced by a Southerner of Jewish persuasion"

 

[willedoo]

The second version of the first national Confererate flag was technically the most correct, in that it carried eleven mullets representing the Confederate States. The later versions carrying no. 12 & 13 representing Missouri and Kansas, both divided and contested states that the confederacy claimed anyway.

 

As most would know, the battle flags were mostly square, with the elongated version as we know it today being the Confederate Naval Jack. A handful of units carried the elongated version into battle, mostly in Tennessee, in particular Bedford Forrest's mob. As the second and third national flags both carried the  battle flag in the canton, the Naval Jack was the elongated version of the battle flag during the life of both those national flags. Australia is one of the few countries that doesn't use the canton design as a naval jack as it would confuse us with the Brits.

 

Just a side note - the Stars and Bars is the first national flag, not the battle flag. In modern times the name Stars and Bars is often mistakenly used to describe the battle flag (Southern Cross).

Edited December 17, 2020 by willedoo