General Lee loses it's rebel flag

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Not the General Lee without the flag. If true that's just silly.

I understand the feeling around it but it's a car from a 30 year old TV show... Get over it.
 
I'm sure people from the South would love a car called The General Sherman! :lol
 
Things like this just upset me so much. My ancestors fought and died under that flag (well, literally, the flag atop the General Lee is the naval jack, and my ancestors were army. But that's not the point.) It was never intended to symbolize the sort of things that people are getting all bent out of shape over. If the desendants of american slaves want to create a symbol of their ancestors' burden so they can revile it, that's fine with me -- but don't take MY symbol, which has good connatations to me, and tear it down.
 
On the model kits, the flag had been missing from the box arts for a time, but the decal sheet still ALWAYS had the flag. A recent diecast I saw in the box from Ertl looked to be lacking the flag, but in reality it had a big orange temporary tape sticker on it. Pull that off, the flag was still under it.

I doubt this will really do all that much, except perhaps drive eBay prices up for box art featuring the flag on it at least for a little while until things calm down. I doubt it will affect the model kits either since Round 2 owns that license while the Ertl diecasts went to Tomy I believe (I don't know where the Johnny Lightning License went).
 
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The people who are offended by it don't know their history at all. The AMERICAN FLAG flew on the slave ships, not the Rebel Flag. That's the Confederate battle flag...

Who the hell is going to watch anything they put out? That's not Dukes of Hazard.
 
Well, that's just stupid.

(I know, you probably weren't expecting that response from me :lol)

Funnily enough, my older brother has a General Lee hotwheels from the 80's that was his favorite hotwheels car (because you know, last name Lee).
 
I agree it sounds lame, but there are some people who really get up in arms over it.

Living in Texas right in the Bible Belt, I gotta tell 'ya if you stick a confederate flag bumper sticker on your car and park in one of the lovely 'hoods in South Dallas there is a 100% chance your car will get shot up and a 99% chance you will get shot as well. They don't play around with that stuff down here.

I've had many an African-American co-worker and I can say I've seen many of them speak with extreme passion about what that flag means to them. People who live outside of the South probably wouldn't understand why it's a big deal to some folks.

Honestly living in the South if I ever had the cash for a General Lee I'd have the Texas flag painted on top just to make sure I didn't get slashed tires or bullet holes in my car. I know the CF doesn't mean I support anything or believe anything one way or the other, but it's still a terrible idea to display it unless you are looking for a fight.

There was a Civil War group (Sons of the Confederacy or something) this year that wanted the confederate flag as an option on license plates. Nope. Petitions and public outcry steered the company who makes the plates to not offer that option.
 
When will it end?

This stuff always comes from the same direction. If you don't like it, make sure you know what direction it comes from and go the opposite way.
 
Living in Texas right in the Bible Belt, I gotta tell 'ya if you stick a confederate flag bumper sticker on your car and park in one of the lovely 'hoods in South Dallas there is a 100% chance your car will get shot up and a 99% chance you will get shot as well. They don't play around with that stuff down here.
That's Dallas.. I see plenty of cars with bumper stickers and such around here (College Station). Big city like DFW? Not exactly the heart of the South.

Still, those are some stupid people, too. Says right in that article that the concept that Confederate Flag=Slavery is ignorance incarnate and just plain stupid to boot. I agree wholeheartedly.

Seems like the kind of thing you'd think they'd bring up once or twice in history class.
 
I agree it sounds lame, but there are some people who really get up in arms over it.

Living in Texas right in the Bible Belt, I gotta tell 'ya if you stick a confederate flag bumper sticker on your car and park in one of the lovely 'hoods in South Dallas there is a 100% chance your car will get shot up and a 99% chance you will get shot as well. They don't play around with that stuff down here.

I've had many an African-American co-worker and I can say I've seen many of them speak with extreme passion about what that flag means to them. People who live outside of the South probably wouldn't understand why it's a big deal to some folks.

Honestly living in the South if I ever had the cash for a General Lee I'd have the Texas flag painted on top just to make sure I didn't get slashed tires or bullet holes in my car. I know the CF doesn't mean I support anything or believe anything one way or the other, but it's still a terrible idea to display it unless you are looking for a fight.

There was a Civil War group (Sons of the Confederacy or something) this year that wanted the confederate flag as an option on license plates. Nope. Petitions and public outcry steered the company who makes the plates to not offer that option.


To be fair, Texas has almost always been that way about the Confederacy. It was the East Texas cotton farmers who pushed things through originally, and the North Central and Southwest folks didn't really give a damn. They were much more preoccupied with the Indians and the Mexicans.

You want the kind of local patriotism that you get in the Deep South with the CBF, the Texas Flag is the only thing that will stir people that way in 3/4 of the state. CBF in Dallas is like me waving a big 'Remember the Alamo" banner down here. Just out of place. I get enough flack for wearing my boots most days.:facepalm
 
There was a Civil War group (Sons of the Confederacy or something) this year that wanted the confederate flag as an option on license plates. Nope. Petitions and public outcry steered the company who makes the plates to not offer that option.

Well, it will be. Even here in Virginia, there was hesitation to having confederate flag license plates available. We had to sue.

And when we did, we won - because the law is overwhelmingly clear: License plates are issued by the government, and the government is absolutely prohibited by the First Amendment to discriminate against free speech. If Texas doesn't want to have vanity plates at all, then that's fine. But if it does, then it can't permit one group and deny another.

And I'm very proud to have the Confederate flag plates on my car right this moment. Never had any reaction that wasn't positive.
 
sounds stupid but then again, arent you supposed to name things after winners not losers

He may not have won the war, but pretty much everyone, Union and Confederate, agreed that Robert E. Lee was anything but a loser.

I agree it sounds lame, but there are some people who really get up in arms over it.

Living in Texas right in the Bible Belt, I gotta tell 'ya if you stick a confederate flag bumper sticker on your car and park in one of the lovely 'hoods in South Dallas there is a 100% chance your car will get shot up and a 99% chance you will get shot as well. They don't play around with that stuff down here.

I've had many an African-American co-worker and I can say I've seen many of them speak with extreme passion about what that flag means to them. People who live outside of the South probably wouldn't understand why it's a big deal to some folks.

Honestly living in the South if I ever had the cash for a General Lee I'd have the Texas flag painted on top just to make sure I didn't get slashed tires or bullet holes in my car. I know the CF doesn't mean I support anything or believe anything one way or the other, but it's still a terrible idea to display it unless you are looking for a fight.

There was a Civil War group (Sons of the Confederacy or something) this year that wanted the confederate flag as an option on license plates. Nope. Petitions and public outcry steered the company who makes the plates to not offer that option.

I can sort of see that reaction, yeah. I mean, imagine being a WWII reenactor in, say, Tel Aviv, walking around in a Wermacht uniform. Even if your attitude is "We just think the Germans had the coolest tanks," you're not gonna win friends and influence people, exactly.

The thing about a symbol is that it doesn't matter what the ACTUAL historical use of it was. It's the SYMBOLIC value independent of history that matters to folks. So, yeah, the slave ships flew the stars and stripes, but....the CBF is a symbol of slavery and oppression to many many people.

Well, it will be. Even here in Virginia, there was hesitation to having confederate flag license plates available. We had to sue.

And when we did, we won - because the law is overwhelmingly clear: License plates are issued by the government, and the government is absolutely prohibited by the First Amendment to discriminate against free speech. If Texas doesn't want to have vanity plates at all, then that's fine. But if it does, then it can't permit one group and deny another.

And I'm very proud to have the Confederate flag plates on my car right this moment. Never had any reaction that wasn't positive.

First off, I'm a Yankee. Born and raised in Philadelphia, got family who fought at Gettysburg and we still have an old Colt Navy in a display case which was actually carried at the battle.

But I lived in the south for seven years -- '96 - '03 -- which coincided with a lot of the pushes to get state flags and such changed. I lived in Tennessee (well, Nashville...) and Georgia (well, Atlanta...). From my experience there, from what I can tell......this **** is COMPLICATED.

I mean, on the one hand, you absolutely have people who equate the CBF with slavery. And I understand that perspective. While the historical reality may be that the CBF wasn't even the actual flag of the Confederacy, and while you can dissect the root causes of the war as being about slavery vs. states rights vs. whatever, the bottom line is that the CBF has been adopted by racist groups as a symbol of racism precisely because of its association with slavery and slave owners. And that's some pretty serious stuff.

On the other hand, the typical 3rd grade history lesson version of the Civil War ("The war was fought to free the slaves, and the good guys in blue won.") is, well...incomplete to say the least. Not to mention stupidly simplistic. Certainly southerners view the story a lot differently, and not even from a unified perspective. Sure, some of them are racist pricks, but hey, some northerners are racist pricks, too. But others may think that slavery was an abomination, while simultaneously loathing the tactics practiced by Sherman and his troops, for example. Or they may look back on southern gentility as a better time and way of life, which was extinguished by invading northerners.

Or they may just be proud of their family's heritage the same way my family is proud of its heritage as evidenced by that Colt Navy in the display case. The big difference is, nobody's taking an eraser to MY family's history to try to "edit out the sad parts." I think that's a big part of this that northerners often miss -- try to imagine people erasing aspects of your family's history because the SYMBOLS involved in it offend someone else whom you've never met and know nothing about. I mean, if anyone's gonna do some creative family history editing...shouldn't that be up to YOU? This is why I think these issues get really really complicated really really fast, and while it's easy to simply paint with a broad brush and say "Rubbish! The South was evil, had slaves, and the CBF is a symbol of HATE! ERASE IT!! REMOVE IT!! BANISH IT!!", you're talking about more than just abstract history in a book (which is bad enough to erase, by the way). You're talking about people's families and lives and, to a certain extent, their identities.



Or, in this case, you're talking about a crass marketing decision to sell more toys. :p
 
Tolerence should go both ways I know that.
Some tolerence is more equal then others these days.

I see some pretty insulting bumper stickers somtimes.
 
This is nothing new. I've noticed over the years that products that are considered 'toys' may have the flag absent, while right next to it a model or diecast 'collectible' is more likely to have the flag.

I've argued the CBF debate extensively over the years and it's use on the General Lee is beneath trivial.

You would think that those who have a problem the the CBF would not buy a GL in any case anyway. So why try to make them happy. It like people who boycott tv show they never watched.

Oh, and there have been General Grants built. They take an old charger and paint it blue with a US flag on the roof and 50 or 76 on the door.
 
First off, I'm a Yankee. Born and raised in Philadelphia, got family who fought at Gettysburg and we still have an old Colt Navy in a display case which was actually carried at the battle.

But I lived in the south for seven years -- '96 - '03 -- which coincided with a lot of the pushes to get state flags and such changed. I lived in Tennessee (well, Nashville...) and Georgia (well, Atlanta...). From my experience there, from what I can tell......this **** is COMPLICATED.

Or they may just be proud of their family's heritage the same way my family is proud of its heritage as evidenced by that Colt Navy in the display case. The big difference is, nobody's taking an eraser to MY family's history to try to "edit out the sad parts." I think that's a big part of this that northerners often miss -- try to imagine people erasing aspects of your family's history because the SYMBOLS involved in it offend someone else whom you've never met and know nothing about. I mean, if anyone's gonna do some creative family history editing...shouldn't that be up to YOU?

Y'know, for a carpetbagger -- you ain't half bad. :)

Actually, I really want to thank you for that post -- you described perfectly the reason why I get upset about these things; but it's always hit too close to home for me to properly step back and explain it.

'Nobody is taking an eraser to [your] family's history." I love that line.
 
Which begs the question. If everyone is entitled to take an eraser to their own family history what do we do when in order to do that the eraser has to eliminate something from the culture (ie: other people's history).

In this case, some people tie that flag to slavery and wish to erase that from their past. Should they have that right?

Personally I think no but interested to hear the thoughts of others.
 
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