The LuLac Edition #3650, November 19th, 2017

STOKING THE FIRES AGAINST INTOLERANCE AND IGNORANCE

Gene Stilp and Steve Corbett making a statement and taking a stand. (Photo: Citizen's Voice)

We were very busy this week at work so I just heard about this event through the electronic social media grapevine. But after I saw the photo in the paper on Friday, I was pleased to see former Congressional candidate Gene Stilp and area Journalist Steve Corbett address the issue of the displaying of both the NAZI flag and the CONFEDERATE flag. I have yet to encounter a NAZI flag but have come in contact numerous times with the Confederate flag.
When driving through Plains, Tunkhannock and Dallas I see them on houses right there in front ironically enough sometimes next to a Steeler, Eagle or Cowboy flag. I wrote this before but it is worth repeating. The Confederate flag wavers are the same people who scream and yell when NFL players kneel during the National Anthem. But yet they fly the flag of a vanquished enemy of the country calling it “an expression of our history”. Ask them anything about the Civil War or the Civil Rights movement and they just spit on the ground and say something like “I ain’t no Liberal!”
The Confederate flag emerged after Reconstruction when Southern Whites, upon its collapse used it as a symbol of the Confederacy. They began to erect statues to the great Confederate Generals of the Civil War. To be clear here, Republicans were for the most part trying to implement Reconstruction but were blocked by Southern Democrats. Now 100 plus years later there is a role reversal where Republicans embrace the flag while most Democrats, moderates and thinking people find it abhorrent.
My last encounter was at my dry cleaners where a guy in a spanking new white pick up had the license plate of the Confederate flag on front of his vehicle. My thoughts on him and the display of this flag are this:
1. It bothers me because in this country we have romanticized The Civil War. We’ve done it through movies and books. As a kid I read books from my Grade School Library Book Shelf about Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. The display of the flag doesn’t right that wrong. It’s like a Cable Network showing Amos and Andy as entertainment. But I hope we have become enlightened enough to put in context where this flag came from and why people can be offended.
2. There is just so much justification for symbols of hate. Defenders will say it is the Constitutional right of people to fly the flag even though it screams ignorance of what this country stands for. Yet the people who defend this demonize those who still respect the American flag by not destroying it but by respectfully making a non violent gesture of kneeling.
3. We need people now, more than ever who will not shrug their shoulders and think displaying a Nazi or Confederate flag is okay. It is an insult to Veterans who fought in our wars. Granted they fought to protect the rights of people to do this but that doesn’t make it palatable by any means.
We should always defend the right for any person to speak their mind. As a matter of fact, many of my posters have told me they’d love to see the jerks coming so they know who they are. I stated that on TV, Radio and on this blog. But we sure as hell can question the content of their message and what exactly they mean by their actions. Questioning will always cause conflict. It is uncomfortable.
This week Gene Stilp and Steve Corbett did something uncomfortable. It was for the greater good of trying to shine a light on what we still face in this nation. More non violent actions like this are needed and applauded by this quarter. We have seem to have forgotten an essay written 60 years ago by Dr. Martin Luther King called “Non violence and Racial Justice”. In it King concluded “At the center of non violence stands the principle of love. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chains of hate. This can only be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives”.
This week, these two guys had the sense and morality to act, to push back on the hate.
How about the rest of us?