Progressive One

The Civil War symbol won’t be flown at any permanent flag pole at a national cemetery.

SARAH D. WIRE
WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs is changing its policy on displaying the Confederate flag, at the urging of Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) and other House Democrats.
In a letter to Huffman, Interim Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs Ronald Walters wrote that the new policy will prohibit the Confederate flag from being flown at any permanent flag pole at a national cemetery.
“We are aware of the concerns of those who wish to see Confederate flags removed from public venues because they are perceived by many as a symbol of racial intolerance,” the letter states.
“We are also aware that the national cemeteries originated during the Civil War and that they are the final resting places of those who served on both sides of that conflict and as such flags of the Confederacy are also viewed by some merely as historical symbols.”
The policy will continue to allow private organizations to display the Confederate flag on individual Confederate soldiers’ graves on certain days.
The flag can also still be displayed at certain ceremonies and at private burials taking place at national cemeteries.
Earlier this year, the House voted 265 to 159 to approve an amendment with the new policy to the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, but the amendment was not included in the final version.
At that point Huffman, who led the amendment with Reps. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), requested that the Department of Veterans Affairs make the policy change itself.
“While racist individuals and groups continue to embrace the Confederate battle flag, it has never been more clear that this anachronistic symbol of hatred, slavery, and insurrection should not be promoted or gratuitously displayed on federal property,” Huffman said in a statement.
“That’s why I am so grateful that the Department of Veterans Affairs responded to our letter and to public concerns and decided to prohibit the large-scale display of Confederate flags on our national veterans cemeteries.” sarah.wire@latimes.com   Twitter: @sarahdwire


PAUL HOLSTON Associated Press
REP. JARED HUFFMAN (D-San Rafael) speaks on Capitol Hill in June during a protest against Confederate symbolism on the Mississippi flag.

Kevyn

It is long past due, perhaps they can use them to save money on toilet paper in the restrooms.

Progressive One

pafret Loc: Northeast

When I read this kind of stupidity it makes me wish I were young enough to leave this country and its fools. The Civil war was not fought about slavery so anyone who thinks the confederate flags are symbols of racism are simply attempting to impose their ridiculous victim-hood control over the rest of the nation. It is historic, not anachronistic and if our schools would teach the true history of that conflict, it wouild readily be seen that the Federal Government as always was trying to extract more money from the exports of the south.

" "It is curious how indifferent historians have been to the South's complaint about the tariff, often dismissing it as a scapegoat for the section's own economic shortcomings or as a disguised form of slavery conflict," writes historian Clyde N. Wilson (in his section of "Slavery, Secession, and Southern History"). "But the plain truth is that [John C.] Calhoun was entirely correct in his opposition to the tariff. Debates about the actual macro- and micro-economic effects of antebellum protection are beside the point. The South, providing the bulk of the Union's exports, sold in an unprotected world market, while all American consumers bought in a highly protected one. And this was to the benefit of one class, no matter how plausibly disguised as a public boon.

"Such exactions are hard to justify at any time, but especially so in a federal Union in which economic interests are regionalized in such a way that the exploitive effect is concentrated. Americans had fought a revolution for smaller grievances. Not to mention, as Calhoun pointed out in the South Carolina Exposition, to the agreement of free traders, that the tariff's 'tendency is, to make the poor poorer and the rich richer.'

"But the tariff, like abolition, was also a question of honor. The disingenuous arguments of the protectionists tended, like those of the abolitionists, to dwell upon the moral inferiority and stupidity of southerners in comparison with wise, righteous, industrious New Englanders. Calhoun did not engage in that type of polemic, but he replied to it, again in the Exposition: 'We are told, by those who pretend to understand our interest better than we do, that the excess of production and not the Tariff, is the evil which afflicts us. ... We would feel more disposed to respect the spirit in which the advice is offered, if those from whom it comes accompanied it with the weight of their example. They also, occasionally, complain of low prices; but instead of diminishing the supply, as a remedy for the evil, demand an enlargement of the market, by the exclusion of all competition.' "[1]

The commercial and industrial rise of New England in the early 19th century was not an accident. It was a deliberate scheme, in which the South at first willingly participated. All was outlined at the inception of the republic by Alexander Hamilton, and the goal was to increase the prosperity and independence of the whole nation. But the result, from the South's point of view, turned out rather differently.

Southern New England was the first section of America to become overcrowded. At the end of the Revolution, it had too many families, not enough farmland, and too few jobs. The federal government set out deliberately to encourage there the commercial trades, especially ship-building and shipping, to save the region from sinking into poverty. The raw material for Northern factories, and the cargoes of Northern merchantmen, would come from the South.

Washington's "Farewell Address" makes this economic trade-off the chief practical argument for a continued union of the sections:

"The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal Laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter, great additional resources of Maratime [sic] and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South in the same Intercourse, benefitting by the Agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand.""

http://www.etymonline.com/cw/economics.htm

Those soldiers interred in that cemetery fought and died for their country under their flag just as our soldiers did for our cause. They have every right to have their cause and flag memorialized. Just because some ignorant pansy yahoos believe that flag is a symbol of hatred and slavery does not make it so. Perhaps next they will find it offensive that the Confederacy dead are buried in the same place and want them exhumed and moved

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Kevy will be buried wraped in a rainbow flag with his favorite dildo and blow up doll of Obama.

Don G. Dinsdale Loc: El Cajon, CA (San Diego County)

The Flag is a Symbol of The Democrat Party of The South (DIXIECRATS)... Don D.

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Progressive One

Not after 64....it became a symbol of far right racism...everyone knows that...it is still that way...Dylan Roof was not liberal or race-friendly.....

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/secession/

One method by which to analyze this historical conflict is to focus on primary sources. Every state in the Confederacy issued an “Article of Secession” declaring their break from the Union. Four states went further. Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina all issued additional documents, usually referred to as the “Declarations of Causes," which explain their decision to leave the Union. The documents can be found in their entirety here.

Two major themes emerge in these documents: slavery and states' rights. All four states strongly defend slavery while making varying claims related to states' rights. Other grievances, such as economic exploitation and the role of the military, receive limited attention in some of the documents. This article will present, in detail, everything that was said in the Declarations of Causes pertaining to these topics.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

No, it is not. The Stars and Bars was the flag of the Confederate States of America, just as the Stars and Stripes is the flag of the United States of America. Only the "modern" liberal progressives are politicizing the symbolism of the Confederate flag. It is their attempt to deflect responsibility for their continuing oppression of blacks. If there was ever an underclass of citizens in America, democrat racial prejudices and racist policies have guaranteed the existence of a body of serfs. I hope that someday our African-Americans will wake up and throw off the yoke.

Raylan Wolfe Loc: earth

Wrong again as usual! The stars and bars was not the official flag of the CSA, it was a battle flag used at sea! It did not become popular in the US, until the KKK adopted, it as their flag!

http://www.usflag.org/confederate.stars.and.bars.html

Official Stars and Bars flag of CSA!

pafret Loc: Northeast

Please provide the links to the sites referenced above. I have just finished reading the Secession acts of all thirteen Southern States and I find the word slave used in three of those acts (not the same as the ones cited) and those three were a reference to the slaveholding states, not a discussion of slavery as root cause. My reference:

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/secessionacts.html

Progressive One

That is hilarious how the right concludes that blacks cannot think for themselves when blacks have become the most sophisticated voting block and turn out at higher rates than anyone. People tell us to vote their way when their party offers nothing and in the process, we serve their political purposes. Everything black people fight for politically, the right attacks, from AA to Voting Rights, then tell us like children that we do not know what is in our best interest, politically. It would be insulting if not expected from them.

Progressive One

hprinze Loc: Central Florida

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Blathering of an extremely ignorant fool who knows nothing about the matter

Raylan Wolfe Loc: earth

Progressive One

everyone knows about their revision of history.....