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Confederate flag defaced in Watertown
By adamg on Sat, 07/09/2016 - 10:38am
Seems the Watertown resident who flew a Confederate flag on July 4th weekend says he was doing it to commemorate the Battle of Gettysburg. The Watertown News reports (scroll down a bit) that proved too subtle a reference for the person who ripped the flag down and spray-painted "Make America Great Again" on it.
H/t Jay.
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Comments
So... Trump supporter, or
So... Trump supporter, or Trump protestor?
Maybe both?
A very confused Trump supporter?
The Technical Term is
"low-information voter" (LIV)
Lemme see...
Tears down a Confederate flag.
Paints, "Make America Great Again" on it.
Throws it on the porch.
So, a vandal that does not care about other people's property.
How progressive...
On the other hand, I've heard good things about the new library wing.
You don't have to be a
You don't have to be a progressive to abhor racisim and slavery.
No, but it certainly helps
It certainly took progressive thinking by the likes of abolitionists and civil rights fighters to continually struggle to change the status quo.
I think Johnson's vision for a library was better
When I am at a library, I am there to seek, browse, and read books, and occasionally maps and videos. I view the library as a sanctuary , not a retail store or a fast food restaurant. I dont want or need easy access to a view of the street, with it's pedestrians and cars.
Windows are good. The old wing has windows, but to let in light, not so you can easily view the street. I thought the granite blocks in front of the windows in the Johnson wing were perfect.
So now the new wing will bring more distractions for those who want to study, read, or perform research. What's the point. It's all a shiny new object now, but after a while, the windows will be a distraction for those of us who actually use the library.
Reading Room
The is still plenty of study space on the second floor of the Johnson building, and of course there is the Reading Room in the McKim Building. My personal favorite spot is the courtyard, but it sounds like you are not a fan of fresh air.
Um, Adam
I think these comments are in the wrong place.
A Hillary supporter?
Maybe he's a Hillary supporter and just lying about everything.
Probably part of the vast left-wing conspiracy
to get Hillary elected. I mean, c'mon: you don't really believe that Trump actually *wants* to be President, do you? That shit is hard work. When would he ever find the time to Tweet?
He's obviously in on the big con: losing yuuuge but gaining billions in free publicity for his pending launch of TTN, the Trump Television Network: "The Greatest, Classiest, Most Luxurious Programming on TV."
Such A Conspiracy Is Plausible — But Certainly Not "Left-Wing"
Mrs. Clinton is the darling of Wall Street, the Military Industrial Complex, Corporate Media, and what's essentially known as "The Establishment". Neither left-wing nor right-wing, her focus is to protect the status quo for the well-connected.
One way to get an extremely disliked and untrusted candidate elected, would be to create an even more distasteful candidate to run against her. Mr. Trump, being skilled in the art of the con, would have no trouble playing that role.
Not to give any credit to such a loony theory, but
wouldn't a simpler approach have been to get the RNC to coalesce earlier around a candidate with a better chance of beating Hillary, one that (like pretty much all of them) was also promising big tax cuts for the rich, the end of the ACA, more military spending, and laxer regulation of the environment and Wall Street?
Also, aren't the vast, coordinated interests of the purported Corporate llluminati worried about who Hillary might appoint to the Supreme Court? I'm guessing they'd be pretty pissed if Citizens United got overturned, for instance.
What makes you believe that Clinton would want that?
She seems pretty dang comfortable with the current PAC/Super PAC scenario. I don't forsee any appointee of her's being anti-CU.
Maybe. Or maybe she's just playing the game by
the current rules, as anyone who wants a chance at winning must do. And I agree that she is likely to make the same devil's bargain that Obama has with Wall Street. I suppose you could argue that with her hawkish inclinations, she doesn't worry the military-industrial complex too much. But the notion that she will not attempt to shift the court significantly to the left, I do not buy.
That still leaves all those other issues on the table. Do you see her rolling back environmental regulations, killing the ACA, cutting taxes on the wealthy? Me, neither. Seems like a pretty big price to pay to preserve the Wall Street and Pentagon status quo.
The notion that putting up a weak Republican candidate so a right-of-center Democratic candidate can win doesn't pass my Occam's Razor test. Even granting the preposterous notion of a conspiracy operating at this level and scale, the safer play would have been to orchestrate the nomination of a more electable GOP candidate.
I have to wonder if the GOP has some buyer's remorse about Citizen's United. Untethered billionaires funding their own personal butt-boy candidates outside of the control of the RNC, keeping them in the primaries well past the point it was clear they had no shot at the nomination, sure looks like it helped Trump win it.
She Wouldn't Advance Environmental Regulations, Either...
... nor has she expressed much interest in raising taxes on the wealthy — Wall Street loves the ACA because it delivers huge profits to the corporate health care industries.
She wouldn't appoint a rabid right-wing person to the Supreme Court, but you can be sure anyone she appoints would be someone to please her wealthy donors above someone who would support the rights of average citizens.
A serious question for you, MC Slim JB — You use the terms "left" and "left-wing" often, yet somehow associate it with Mrs. Clinton. What exactly does "left-wing" mean to you?
I'm not one of those people who believes that Clinton
is morally corrupt to the depths of her soul and only cares about her wealthy friends and donors. I think she's like most politicians who get to her level: ambitious and pragmatic about how to play the game, venal in small ways (she has made herself rich, but not filthy rich), willing to trade horses to get what she wants. I do believe she would pursue an agenda that benefits poor and middle-class people in ways than no Republican President would, and is clearly much stronger on social issues I care about like women's rights. I rate her as being better prepared for the job than any non-incumbent candidate in my lifetime. It's not really a hard choice for me, given the hideousness of Trump and my despair at the prospects for a third way,
My use of the term "left-wing conspiracy" is jocular, an echo of her "vast right-wing conspiracy" remark. As I said, I deem her a right-of-center Democrat, more hawkish and interventionist and cozier with Wall Street than I prefer. But I reject the notions that from a policy perspective, she's some kind of crypto-Republican, and that the only reason she's pursuing the Presidency is to protect the status quo at the expense of ordinary citizens. I know it's hard for the typical Fox News watcher to contemplate, but I don't think she's evil. It's that one doesn't get a chance to compete in this arena without getting bloody.
Now, whether she might achieve any of her agenda in the face of a Congress that fights any idea, good or bad, simply because the opposition supports it, is another question. One thing I feel more confident about than some observers here: she will shift the Supreme Court to the left.
The most well-prepared
The most well-prepared candidate in recent memory is definitely not Hillary, it's Romney. He knows how to keep his nose clean and knows how to delegate and run a tight ship. He ran a poor campaign in 2012. If it hadn't been for Huckabee splitting the vote, he would have won in 2008.
Successful businessman, one-term governor.
I don't see that as stacking up against eight years as First Lady with a significant role in policy development, nine years as a US Senator, and five years as Secretary of State.
Besides, our other CEO Presidents (W and Hoover) were utter disasters.
Thank You For Your Thoughtful Reply
There are many things we agree upon, and of course, other things we don't.
( though, I'm still not sure what you mean by "left" )
The old rightie / leftie dichotomy is kind of stale,
don't you think? Consider how Saint Ronald Reagan would fare in the modern GOP: Apostate! RINO! Immigrant-coddler! The new right has drifted to what used to be considered the extreme margin in the last 30 years. Hillary is a 1980s Republican with a bit more social liberality, is all.
That said, I had a hard time coming around to the Bernie camp: his fiscal numbers didn't add up to me. I make my choices on more pragmatic grounds, and for all the polling that said he could win, I figured Bernie would have been easy to destroy in the general as a commie / pinko / socialist / choose-your-boogedy-boogedy-term-to-frighten-idiots-whom-he'd-probably-help.
I'm not rich, but I'm doing okay. I don't expect either party to affect my fortunes much. But I grew up poor, was part of a generation that still had justifiable hopes of upward mobility with hard work and a little bit of help from the government in the form of affordable college loans, the mortgage interest deduction, and so on.
I've been heartened by the steady progress we've made on issues like gay rights: inconceivable in my youth, now something that seems inevitable once a certain stubborn bunch of olds age out of the population. Say what you will about Millennials, but God bless them for not giving a fuck about who you love. If we can make headway on that, maybe there's hope for dealing with the country's original sin of racism? Please, Jesus?
I'm not ready to abandon that progressive idea of America just yet, and I'm horrified by the "I got mine, up yours" mentality of many conservative voters.
Trying To End The ACA Is A Losing Position ...
... especially when the Republicans offer nothing better to replace it. Too many of them have been associated with extreme right-wing agendas and other unpopular policies, and their general obstructionist nature of failing to do anything useful for the nation, make voting for a Republican unacceptable to a majority of Americans.
Bernie Sanders said he'd apply a "litmus test" of vowing to overturn Citizens United to his Supreme Court nominees, but Mrs. Clinton is quite happy with the campaign funding system exactly like it is now.
The dividing lines of "left", "right", Democrat, and Republican fall apart when it gets down to big money interests — the rich feel they deserve to get richer and whoever pays the biggest bribes to get someone elected will reap the rewards of their investments.
Surely, you've heard of John Fish and Suffolk Construction, haven't you?
the term you're searching for
= Deep State. Hillary Clinton represents the Deep State. Trump represents unbridled chaos. This election is awful and I hate it.
Silly talk.
Trump represents paleoconservatism.
I'm a Hillary supporter.
Just the other day my lawyer told me, "Upon advice of counsel, change your last name to Clinton".
Drumpf and Rodham-Clinton are Friends
They probably owe each other many favors from the time of HRC's senate days.
I nitpick, but ...
That particular traitor flag is known as the Third National flag and wasn't adopted until March 1865, 18 months after Gettysburg,
Nice try at a phony rationalization, Cletus.
Oops. Bad counting on my
Oops. Bad counting on my fingers on my part.
It was 21 months.
So?
All that means is that, according to you, he is inappropriately commentating Gettysburg. Is there really an approved way that must be followed? I don't think this has rules like US flag etiquette.
It's not about flag etiquette.
Most of the objections here are about what the flag represents: the Confederacy, which seceded from the Union to defend the repugnant, backward, hateful principle of slavery.
Personally, I see what its defenders have to say about it ("It about Southern history, legacy, honoring soldiers, etc.") as utter bullshit. In 2016, it's a symbol of virulent racism, period.
A soldier fought that his
A soldier fought that his home would not be burned, that his wife and daughters would not be raped, that his brothers in arms could fight on for the same if he fell. High minded idealism is not often a luxury one can afford against an invading force. We can respect the duty, honor, and courage displayed by both sides on the field of battle at Gettysburg, and hope that nothing so terrible as the civil war be visited upon this country again.
Alabama beckons
If you believe the Civil War was the War of Northern Aggression, you might be in the wrong state. I'm sure some of the soldiers on the Eastern Front felt the same way about the Russians, and yet nobody today would fly the Nazi flag to remember their lost cause.
GTBGPAXG — Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
featuring Don Elliot
'says he was doing it to
'says he was doing it to commemorate the Battle of Gettysburg. '
Can I say I told you so now?
Credit is due
That's an impressive number of words to spraypaint on such a small flag. I would have been able to paint three letters, and then I'd be done. No more room.