The president’s speech at a South Carolina church did not go over well with the GOP candidate.
The president’s speech at a South Carolina church did not go over well with the GOP candidate.
Joe Biden gave a speech in South Carolina on Monday, and Nikki Haley isn’t happy about it. Specifically, she’s not happy about the part where the president called her out for her extremely cringeworthy comments about the Civil War, saying, “Let me be clear, for those who don’t seem to know: Slavery was the cause of the Civil War.”
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The issue of the Civil War—and her commentary on it—has come up for Haley in the past. While running for governor of South Carolina in 2010, she described the war as a matter of two sides fighting over “tradition” and “change,” adding that the Confederate flag was “not something that is racist.” She also claimed there was no reason to take the flag down from the statehouse grounds (until five years later, after the mass shooting at the Charleston church). After Haley’s gaffe in December, Jaime Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said that her failure to mention slavery was “not stunning if you were a Black resident in SC when she was Governor.”
Here’s the thing about the states that seceded - they drafted ordinances of secession with a declaration of causes for secession, and they all say they’re leaving the union because they want to enslave black people.
There is no debate about this. It was written down by the confederates.
Georgia’s first paragraph in their declaration of causes:
The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property
Mississippi, second sentence:
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
South Carolina, first paragraph:
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
Texas, 3rd paragraph in after babbling about dates and tranquility:
She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy.
Virginia, first paragraph:
the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.
Yes, Nikki, you’re right that it was about “tradition” and “change,” but what you’re conveniently neglecting is the fact that the tradition that these states didn’t want to change was owning slaves.
She might really enjoy how in Florida they have Prager U make books and videos on how Slavery was beneficial to the slaves for the masses to get their edumications from...
Notice how no one had a problem with the Confederate flag until 2015-16 thereabouts? It was just a symbol meaning "of the South" politicized and demonized unnecessarily...
That said Haley is a god damn moron and a sociopath who can only look otherwise when compared to a bigger monster.
Wait, what? I'm pretty sure a lot of people have had a problem with the Confederate flag since long before 2015. It's always been "politicized", its literally a political symbol. And it's demonized because people don't like traitors or slavery.
Seriously?
It was always a symbol for "racist piece of shit", and most people did have a problem with it but just ignored it, like all the other racist piece of shit symbolism because the Voting Rights act passed and Segregation was defeated so racism ended....right?...right?
Source: not born in the south but lived there, and am old.
Yeah no, as someone who was raised in a sane part of the United States, I knew what that flag meant before I even made it to highschool. And we all knew that the scumbags that still displayed the flag were racist pieces of shit.
That's just a lie. I was born in 1977 and I knew that flag was an insult to every black person in America since I learned about the Civil War in elementary school. No one had to teach me that either. It's fucking obvious.
Also: Obama's tenure only ended because of term limits. The "tradition and heritage" of the Confederacy ended in defeat at the hand of the United States.
I've been thinking about this recently. Reagan would have had a third term. Clinton would still get elected and likely have a third term as well because the recession that got Bush Sr. would have got Reagan. There's a good chance we don't defund counter terror in the FBI and we actually catch the 9/11 terrorists. So Clinton probably stays in office until the 2008 start of the housing crisis. At this point party fatigue usually sets in so Obama would likely lose to McCain. But that's okay because he was probably the safest GOP choice in the last 50 years. Still GOP policies would have done him in by 2016, at which point Obama v Hillary plays out and we get Obama as our current president. Trump forever remains a footnote as he tried to run against McCain in 2016 and McCain obliterated Trump's ego in the way only the military can.
she described the war as a matter of two sides fighting over “tradition” and “change,”
Yeah, the south was fighting to keep their tradition of owning slaves, and the north fought to change that tradition.
It amazes me how hard rightoids work to not acknowledge the plain as day fact from the documents detailing states' secession documents and the constitution of the confederacy.
You ain't wrong, but at the same time, if we define "tradition" as "doing certain things certain ways because we've always done those things those ways, and we don't want to change", then I guess they're not wrong either...but by the same rationale, that same social inertia is also the reason we have climate science deniers, racists, homophobes, misogynists, xenophobes, and bigots of all other shapes and sizes. Basically: they're used to it being accepted to do things we now know to be problematic, and rather than change, they'd simply rather not change...for no better reason than not changing means continuing to do things the way they've always done them.
Isn't it weird how the right always like to deny what we all know, and that is that the Southern Strategy is a real thing, and/or pull out that old chestnut about Robert Byrd and how democraTs aRe thE Real Ku Klux KlaN, but if you pull down a few statues of racist traitors (or even threaten to), or remove the flag of the racist losers, they start getting all teary-eyed about "heritage" and "preserving history"?
adding that the Confederate flag was “not something that is racist.”
You know that this idiot that ignores that she's not white until it's convenient, would fly a Nazi flag if they gave her enough money and power and claim the exact same thing for the Nazi flag.
adding that the Confederate flag was “not something that is racist.”
"The Confederate flag was simply the primary symbol of the Confederacy, a movement primarily driven by the desire to maintain the brutal institutional slavery in the USA. That doesn't mean the flag itself was racist. The flag itself is no more racist than KKK hoods, Jim Crow laws, or Redlining in regard to financing for black prospective homeowners." - Haley probably
Yeah, but until relatively recently, white folk didn't think that way. At all. For young people back in the day, it was, "Yee haw! I'm a rebel!" For most, it was merely a symbol of the South, not of the Confederacy or slavery or any other such bullshit. We thought nothing of it, if we thought about it at all.
Somewhere along the line it evolved into a racist dog whistle. And that's fucking sad. I flew one back in college, now I won't do business with a place selling Confederate paraphernalia.
The whole controversy kinda caught us off guard. I never once heard anyone complain about the Confederate flag, call it racist. In the 80's or 90's, I can imagine asking my few black friends and coworkers what they thought of it, and I imagine they would simply say, "Man, no one gives a shit about that hillbilly crap!"
Later, people pitched a fit, on both sides. And these were sides that seemingly hadn't existed the month before!
Some, like me, took a moment to reflect on how it might make black folks feel, thought about how the symbol had changed over the decades. Well, times and symbols change. Judging the past through a younger, more modern lens, might mislead a bit. See how that goes both ways?
Same goes for the American flag. Dad was a Torpedoman, 3rd Class, in the Pacific Theater. Jesus, the shit that ship was involved in... Anyway, we only brought the flag out on appropriate holidays, and while he didn't sit me down and teach me the US Flag Code, he got the points across. Now it's basically a symbol of right-wing nuts. Think on that. I won't fly an American flag on the 4th of July. Imagine explaining that to my father.
tl;dr: Sharing my experiences in the hope of sharing understanding. LOL, like that'll happen.
Yeah, but until relatively recently, white folk didn’t think that way. At all. For young people back in the day, it was, “Yee haw! I’m a rebel!” For most, it was merely a symbol of the South, not of the Confederacy or slavery or any other such bullshit. We thought nothing of it, if we thought about it at all.
I didn't downvote you, but you're speaking of your particular upbringing and experience. Your experience wasn't that of all white people. Mine was different.
I liked watching the TV show Dukes of Hazzard when I was a child in the early 1980s. I wanted a toy General Lee car. Similar to the picture below:
My parents explained who General Lee was, and what the Confederate flag on the roof of the car meant. I was too young to understand all of the implications, but I clearly got the idea that black people found the Confederate flag offensive because it represented slavery. I had black friends in school and at church. The thought of me owning a toy that would made them feel bad embarrassed me.
I asked if there was anything offensive about the KITT car from Knight Rider. I was happy to find out there wasn't and got that one instead.
Somewhere along the line it evolved into a racist dog whistle.
Yeah, it's super easy to how it's a symbol of racism by how hard the racists defend it. Most people that had any affinity for it simply let it go when they realized it hurt people. So now the hatred under the banner is, in quite a real sense, distilled.
I'm surprised and sorry to hear this. We have had a similar issue up north from you. The Rona idiots in our country have taken our flag on as their symbol of being an idiot.
We would only really flag ours on Canada day or for sporting events. Now they drive around with it on their cars windows and out the back of their trucks like our American cousins. Usually they will add a Fck Trudeau flag to the mix. I now no longer want to fly it due to a minority that have ruined it for now