I-95 Memorial Battle Flag Projects Update

 

The I-95 Memorial Battle Flag Site #2 is nearly complete, and when installed, a beautiful pole will stand 82' high, and display a 20x30 Battle Flag.

All of our projects are funded solely by donations from supporters, so we are constantly looking for ways to be good stewards of those funds, working on shoestring budgets to raise as many flags as possible for as little expense as necessary. We have been fortunate enough to be able to obtain several "reclaimed" poles, which will be used on pending projects, but the story behind this next one will be hard to top...

Originally 90 ft. in height, this pole was purchased for use by the U.S. Military, and once stood on an Army base in Virginia... none other than... Ft. (Robert E.) LEE!

More @ Virginia Flaggers

NC: Rejecting the Time-Honored Spirit of Compromise

 

“I want men gentlemen North and South to mark my words:  

when . . . this country should be laid waste; when shipping in our ports shall be destroyed, when our institutions of learning and religion shall wither away or be torn down; when your cities shall be given up for plunder and for slaughter; when your sons and my sons, your neighbors and my neighbors, shall be carried from this bloody field of strife; and our mothers, our sisters, our wives, and our daughters, shall assemble around us, and, with weeping eyes and aching hearts, say: 

“Could you not have done something, could you not have said something, that would have averted this dreadful calamity? 

I want to feel in my conscience and in my soul that I have done my duty.”  

*****************************

North Carolinian John A. Gilmer of Guilford County struggled mightily with the Republicans to find compromise but failed.  The same was done by Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis who said in July 1864: "I tried in all my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, and for 12 years, I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not.  The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize the musket and fight our battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self-government” The refusal of the Republican party to pursue peaceful compromise caused the war, and subsequent loss of the Founders’ Constitution.

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman

North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission

"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"

www.ncwbts150.com

"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

Rejecting the Time-Honored Spirit of Compromise

“Gilmer turned to Republicans in the [US House] chamber. 

“I would say to my Northern friends . . . that you have it in your power . . . to crush this [talk of disunion] out in one hour.”  Simply allow both sections equal rights in the territories and there would be “a speedy end to the ambitious schemes of disunion politicians.”  The endless debate was no more than “an excuse for agitation” that accomplished nothing.  

“I incline to the opinion that in the future, as heretofore, soil, climate, and productions would settle the question of slavery in the Territories, if peace and quiet were restored.  After all that has been said and done, Congress has never made a free State out of any Territory that nature intended for a slave State, and has never made a slave State out of territory where free labor could be profitably employed.”

Gilmer pleaded with his Republican colleagues to consider any compromise, any concession that might deprive secessionists of their arguments.  Southern fears were real and would continue to be exploited if Republicans kept silent or ignored the problem.

“You say you have elected your President constitutionally,” said the North Carolinian. “I admit it.  You express wonder and surprise that the South should be alarmed at this.  Now, let me reason with you . . . Suppose the positions of the two sections of the union were reversed; suppose the [Southern] States were eighteen, and the [Northern] States fifteen; suppose the [Southern] States had a majority in this House . . . [and the Senate and electoral college, and nominate a Southern president and vice-president, and all adopt] a resolution intimating that it is in the power of Congress, as well as the duty of Congress, to provide that no more free States shall be admitted into the Union . . .  

[S]uppose all these things were to happen, and then speeches, assurances, and telegrams, should be freely circulated throughout your country, that the South intended to make all the States slaveholding States: I submit to you, my Northern friends, would you not be very much warmed up against that Southern movement, and begin to feel that you were but small folks in this Government? Would you not feel like looking out for yourselves, at least to the extent of asking for some guarantees?”

Settlement of every sectional dispute was within reach if only the time-honored spirit of compromise could be revived. “Is it possible that the sons of American fathers cannot agree on this trifling matter?”  What would the Founding Fathers do under these circumstances?  Would they let matters go on until blood was shed?  Should compromise fail and conflict come, Gilmer knew it would be his duty to stand by North Carolina. 

“I want men gentlemen North and South to mark my words:  when . . . this country should be laid waste; when shipping in our ports shall be destroyed, when our institutions of learning and religion shall wither away or be torn down; when your cities shall be given up for plunder and for slaughter; when your sons and my sons, your neighbors and my neighbors, shall be carried from this bloody field of strife; and our mothers, our sisters, our wives, and our daughters, shall assemble around us, and, with weeping eyes and aching hearts, say: “Could you not have done something, could you not have said something, that would have averted this dreadful calamity? 

I want to feel in my conscience and in my soul that I have done my duty.”  

(Taking a Stand, Portraits From the Southern Secession Movement, Walter Brian Cisco, 1998, White Mane Books, pp. 97-98)

Dining with Stalin

“In the socialist commonwealth every economic change becomes an undertaking whose success can be neither appraised in advance nor later retrospectively determined. There is only groping in the dark. Socialism is the abolition of rational economy.” —Ludwig von Mises

When I was driving to work earlier this week, I heard a fascinating story on NPR that discussed communal life under the Soviet Union. As part of the grand effort to completely reorganize Russian society under communal lines, the Soviet regime sought to abolish private kitchens!

Why? The NPR story reported that “Soviet authorities considered kitchens and private apartments dangerous to the regime was because they were places people could gather to talk about politics.”

According to Russian writer and radio journalist Alexander Genis, “[t]he most important part of kitchen politics in early Soviet time was they would like to have houses without kitchens. Because kitchen is something bourgeois. Every family, as long as they have a kitchen, they have some part of their private life and private property.” Another Russian writer adds, “[c]ommunal kitchens were not places where you would bring your friends. I think that was one of the ideas for creating a communal kitchen. There would be a watchful eye of society over every communal apartment. People would report on each other. You would never know who would be reporting.”

The full article on NPR is worth reading and contains a number of revealing gems on the reality of communal kitchens in Soviet apartments and regimented life under communism. Here’s one striking episode:

More @ The Independent Institute

Montel Williams: War on Veterans

Via LH

I was on his show along with others many years ago concerning the Battle Flag.  He was a gentleman.

 Montel Williams gave a passionate, emotional speech about the need for congress and the administration to stop dragging their feet and being political with veterans problems and get them corrected. He was attending a veterans picnic in Myrtle Beach for Memorial Day.

Concealment, Cover, and Tactical Movement

From my earliest days of training beyond the fundamentals of shooting, I recall being taught that cover is better than concealment and that the most valuable tactic is gaining cover. As with many things I was taught as doctrine, I now say “maybe.”

Concealment is basically a visual concept. If the best way to win a fight is to avoid it, concealment may be a useful means to avoid or escape a fight. It may also allow you to move unseen to a position of advantage in a fight that you cannot avoid. Concealment is also pretty much an all-or-none proposition – if your foot is sticking out beyond the side of what you thought was concealment or if your shadow projects beyond it, your assailant may notice that you’re there. Similarly, if you’re trying to move your children unseen, from their bedrooms to yours, and scrape your gun or flashlight against the wall, you may have lost the concealment that the wall had provided you.

More @ Bearing Arms

The Holy Grail of Muscle Cars: 1971 Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda Auction

 

@  MECUM

Bills Custom Wood Products

Via WiscoDave

 

More @ Bill's

Donetsk fighting

 

More @ U 96

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 St. Andrew's Cross

 

Remains of 40 Confederate soldiers discovered in Virginia cemetery

Via Robert

Their remains sat, unmarked, in shallow graves at the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Va., for decades. Now, some 150 years after the Civil War, the bodies of 40 Confederate soldiers discovered over the past two months will receive a proper memorial.

"It's been very meaningful to us to find these spots, identify these soldiers and bring closure to families," said Ted Delaney, the cemetery's assistant director, who, along with a team of archaeologists, uncovered the exact resting place of some 40 Confederate soldiers as well as the plots where Union soldiers were once buried and later exhumed.

More @ Fox

Dairy Farmer Fights Eminent Domain And Warns Others

Via LH

Alleged target of California gunman says 'it's an absolute miracle' she's alive

 

An alleged target of Elliot Rodger's shooting rampage says it's a "miracle" she wasn't struck when the 22-year-old gunman fired multiple shots at her during a killing spree Friday night that left 6 dead and several others injured.

In a lengthy manifesto that blamed his rage largely on rejection by women, Rodger wrote that, "I will destroy all women because I can never have them," citing in particular "blonde girls" from the Alpha Phi Sorority at the University of California Santa Barbara.

Sierra Swartz, a Santa Barbara City College sophomore, was walking to her boyfriend's house Friday night when Rodger pulled up alongside her in his vehicle and briefly spoke to her before opening fire.

"It's an absolute miracle that he didn't shoot me from how close he was to me," Swartz said. "There was no one else around. I was the only person on the streets."

"He looked directly at me. He talked to me and then he just shot at me multiple times and somehow, even though I hadn't even ran yet, he didn't hit me," she said.

More @ Fox

Raw: Ukraine Launches Airstrikes in Donetsk

Via u_96

How to Zero an AR15

Via Jeffery

Dated. 

Giddy as a schoolgirl, you pull your brand new, never-before-fired AR-15 from its case and blast away several magazines worth of ammo on the 25-yard range, making cans dance… Or not. After the first magazine, it’s clear to you that your new AR needs proper zeroing, but what is the best method and zeroing point?

More @ All Outdoor

Tomb of the Unknown - Soldier yelling at laughing crowd

Europe Sinks ... As Predicted

Via NC Renegade

 

European Parliament election: Eurosceptic parties claim victory in UK ... Right-wing Eurosceptic parties stormed to victory in European Parliament elections in the UK and France, as exit polls showed voters turning their backs on mainstream politics. UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage claimed victory in the British election, as early results showed his party beating both the Conservatives and Labour. With 56 out of 73 seats declared, UKIP, which wants to pull Britain out of the European Union, had won 28.6 percent of the vote, ahead of both the Conservatives and Labour, while the Liberal Democrats had won just one seat. – ABC.net

Dominant Social Theme: Europe is coming to its senses!

Free-Market Analysis: The headlines exploded last night with EU election results showing clearly that voters in France, England, Germany, Denmark, Hungary and Greece (among others) had had enough of the EU.

Of course, our readers are not surprised. We've been predicting this for years, even though our critics have pushed back with the usual rhetoric about the "brainwashed sheeple" and how change was impossible in an environment where elite globalists Control All.

More @ The Daily Bell

Memorial Day mea culpa

Via avordvet

 

In sum: it is right and proper that we honor the men and women who have righteously stood up and sworn an oath to defend our sacred Constitution. That it has been pissed over and rendered irrelevant by mental and moral pygmies–that the government it established has been perverted to monstrous extremes by shrunken, twisted misanthropists greedy for personal power or wealth–in no way reflects on our soldiery past and present or their honorable service, which is ultimately to the highest of high ideals: liberty and self-determination. 

Hats off to them, today and every day. 

The stench of corruption and debasement wafting off the rotting corpse of a stolen government taints them not a whit.

Full piece @ Cold Fury

Hard Truths and Adios

Via Michael 

 

There is really nothing left to say, is there? Do we wait for the next Bundy Ranch? We all have our lives and we are walking on eggshells hoping to get a few more things tied up before we have to step out from our protective barriers called "lives" and become counter-revolutionaries. We have to stop trying to protect those things that are lost. We cannot hold onto what we have and do anything substantial to overcome the tyranny of the current corrupt system.

I don't know if I'll write another post. The communication issue is persistent and maybe some folks are working on it, I don't know, they have not responded, not to me, anyway. I hope so. As far as defense is concerned, I have it figured out for myself. I have always been working on a plan to secure my people. I have assets others do not, so I take it all a bit for granted.

More @ Christian Mercenary

HuffPo Says Bring Sticks to a Gunfight! – How to Respond to an Active Shooter, Huffpo to the Rescue!

This is the image Huffpo ran with their article, which might lead you to believe that the active shooter might actually be a pirate.

How do you respond to an active shooter? I mean really? If the shooter is active and shooting, how should you respond? Well look no further. Personal Security Expert Robert Siciliano and The Huffington Post have finally provided us with the advice we’ve all been searching for.

I have to hand it to Huffpo. I’m glad they’ve tackled this delicate topic. I’ve been looking for an authoritative opinion. I don’t like to think too much, so having a bonafide expert tell me what to do is a genuine boon. And it is nice to know that the Huffington Post cares enough about my safety that it would take the time to pen this little DIY how-to. So what’s their best advice?

Huffpo’s #1 rule: stay calm.

“The first thing you should do in a shooting crisis,” Siciliano writes, “is to remain calm, even though your head might be telling you to fight or escape.”

More @ Guns America

Next Gen Warfare: Hackers, Not the Government, Will Fight Our Next Big War

 

War is raging in Crimea. It is marked by all characteristics we have come to expect of modern warfare. Irregular troops, in and out of uniform, conducting operations in urban centers, supported by technology, televised all over the world in full HD. On top, is waged a layer of what we’ve come to know as cyberwar. A relatively new domain of warfare, its tactics are more likely to be borrowed from the hacker community than from militaries of old. The theft and manipulation of information trump destroying targets.

What’s most interesting, however, has less to do with how, and much more to do with who is fighting this cyberwar.


Not Governments

Crimea’s cyberwar is not one between two nation-states.

More @ Beta Beat

The Confederate Flag: History -v- Hysteria

 

H.L. Hunley Funeral/Parade

*****************************************

Re-post NamSouth 2008

"One can accept the interpretation of entire states, Southern rock and country bands, NASCAR fans, Kappa Alpha fraternities, thousands of reenactors and a century of thoughtful historians."

 I am a KA, but national headquarters has now turned politically correct which is a far cry from when my brother pledges and I defended the Battle Flag hoisted on a telephone pole in our house's backyard 24/7 from pledges of other fraternities during Hell Week at Randolph-Macon.

From: DixieCol@aol.com
To: JFrancais@yahoo.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 8:31 PM
Subject: The Confederate flag: History -v- Hysteria

The Confederate flag: History -v- Hysteria

For the average non-Southerner, like you, the continued affection residents of Dixie display toward the controversial Battle Flag can be baffling. If African-Americans are so incensed by the banner, why not just fold it up and put it away? Why indeed? The war has been over for 137 years. Certain unsavory groups of a racist stripe seem unduly attached to the symbol as well. No one in the print or electronic media seems willing to come forward and offer a counterpoint. Is there another point of view after all?

Newspapers however, and writers like you, have developed the habit of concluding all flag related stories the same way. The throwaway line for the other point of view is usually something like "flag defenders say the banner stands for heritage". But what does that mean? If such an understanding can be developed is it still not overshadowed by prevailing negative opinions? Can a symbol so emotionally charged ever be mutually understood?

Therein lies the problem. The very same symbol means completely different things to different people. Perhaps the best place to start is there. Many hate groups have gravitated toward the historical flag. But it is also true these very same groups also use other symbols that are loved and cherished by millions of people. The pinnacle of the Ku Klux Klan was in the 1920s. They boasted over a million members with national leadership in Ohio and Illinois. Yet the most careful photographic scrutiny of the era will fail to reveal a single Confederate flag. One will however find the American flag and the Christian cross in profusion. These symbols are mainstays even today for hate groups. The difference is that patriotic Americans and Christians already have a context for these symbols. The icons cannot be co-opted because they already mean something else. This is also precisely why Southerners continue to love the Battle flag in the face of so much bad publicity. The flag already has meaning and context.

In fact, what the shamrock is to the Irish or the Star of David is to Jews, the Battle Flag is to most Southerners. There is enough historical baggage to encumber any of these symbols, but there is more to admire. The Confederate flag embodies religion, ethnic heritage, early-American revolutionary ideology and ultimately familial sacrifice on the battlefield. The circumstances that gave it birth are the touchstone of the regions identity, no different than the potato famine for the Irish or the holocaust for the Jew. To examine the flag, in historical and ethnic context should permit all but the most rabid flag-haters an opportunity to understand what is behind the vague explanation of "heritage".

While the Battle flag did not make its appearance in its recognizable form until 1862, some of the design elements date to antiquity. The "X" is the cross of St. Andrew. It was the fisherman Andrew who introduced his brother Simon Peter to Jesus in Galilee 2000 years ago. When the disciple Andrew was himself martyred years later he asked not to be crucified on the same type of cross Christ died upon. His last request was honored and he was put to death on a cross on the shape of the "X". Andrew later became the patron saint of Scotland and the Scottish flag today is the white St. Andrews cross on a blue field. When Scottish immigrants settled in Northern Ireland in the 1600s the cross was retained on their new flag, albeit a red St. Andrews cross on a white field. When the New World opened up landless Scots and Ulster-Scots lefts their homes and most of them settled in the South, preserving their old culture in the isolated rural and frontier environment.

Grady McWhiney explains in his book Cracker Culture, that fully 75% of the early South was populated by these Celts. Most sold themselves into indentured servitude (the earliest form of American slavery) because they could not afford the cost of passage. This explains why only 6% of the African slaves brought to the New World ended up in the American colonies. The lowland English of Saxon descent by contrast settled the Northeastern colonies. This imbued those colonies with such an English character they are still known as New England. Urban, commercial and materialistic by nature these Yankee descendants could not have been more different than their Southern countrymen. Many historians believe the longstanding historical animosities between Saxon and Celt did not bode well for the new country. With this historical perspective the St. Andrews cross seems almost destined to be raised again as ancient rivals clashed on new battlefields.

From this Celtic stock, the ingredients that made the unique Southern stew were gradually introduced. The American Revolution unleashed Celtic hatred of the redcoat. Southerners penned the Declaration of Independence, chased the British through the Carolina's and defeated them at Yorktown. But they were dismayed when New England immediately sought renewed trade with England and failed to support the French in their own revolution. Another Virginian later crafted the Constitution, a document as sacred to Southerners as their Bibles. Law, they believed finally checkmated tyranny. The red, white and blue 13-starred banner was their new cherished flag. These same features would later become a permanent part of the Battle flag.

But all was not well with the new republic. Mistrust between the regions manifested even before the revolution was over. The unwieldy Articles of Confederation preceded the constitution. Two of the former colonies (N.C and R.I.) had to be coerced into approving the latter document after wrangling that included northern insistence they be allowed to continue the slave trade another 20 years. Virginia and Kentucky passed resolutions in 1796 asserting their belief that political divorce was an explicit right. Massachusetts threatened on three separate occasions to secede, a right affirmed by all the New England states at the 1818 Hartford convention. The abolitionists were champions of secession and would burn copies of the constitution at their rallies. Their vicious attacks upon all things Southern occurring as it did in the midst of Northern political and economic ascendancy animated Southern secessionists years before the average Southerner could consider such a possibility.

Meanwhile Low Church Protestantism had taken root in the South in the early 1800's and like kudzu has flourished until the present day. Sociological studies conducted by John Shelton Reed of the University of North Carolina scientifically prove that the South is still the nations most religious region. Southerners are more likely to belong, attend and contribute to their churches than Americans from any other section. Calvinism is the main strain of religious thought and this connection to Scotland and the St. Andrews cross is no coincidence. The religious revivals that swept the Confederate armies during the war further ingrained faith as a fixture of Southern character. During the same era north of the Mason-Dixon transcendentalism, as expounded by Thoreau and Emerson, the taproot of modern secular humanism, was displacing puritanical religion as the dominant philosophical belief. The nation was also fracturing along spiritual lines.

By 1860 the United States was in reality two countries living miserably under one flag. When war broke out, Dixie's' original banner so resembled the old American forebear that a new flag was needed to prevent confusion on the field of battle. The blue St. Andrews cross, trimmed in white on a red field appeared above the defending Confederate army. Thirteen stars appeared on those bars representing the eleven seceding states and revolutionary precedent. These fighting units were all recruited from the same communities, with lifelong friends and close relatives among the casualties of every battle. As they buried their dead friends and relatives the names of those battles were painted or stitched on their flags. At Appomattox a Union observer wrote, they were stoic as they stacked their arms but wept bitterly when they had to furl their flags.

Then, as now the flag symbolizes for Southerners not hate but love; love of heritage, love of faith, love of constitutional protections, love of family and community. If the 1860 census is to be believed 95% of the slaves were owned by just 5% of the population. The modern insistence that the conflict was to resolve the issue of slavery is at best overstated and at worst revisionist. But the current argument does deserve one more look.

The vitriolic, almost irrational antipathy toward the flag is a recent phenomenon. Credible research reveals its origins to be in the 1980's revived by a financially strained and scandal plagued NAACP. Current President, Kwaise Mfume has turned the issue into a fundraising juggernaut. Egged on by a liberal media irritated at the lingering conservatism in the South, the flag fight has generated much heat but little light. South Carolina relocated the flag from its capital dome to a place of historical significance after they decided it flew in a position of false sovereignty. Governor Hodges became the second governor in a row whose broken promises to "leave the flag alone" scuttled their reelection bids. Former Governor Barnes of Georgia finessed a backroom flag deal that for now has changed the flag but sank his rising political star as outraged citizens sent him to retirement in the 2002 elections. In Mississippi, however, the thing was put to an old fashioned democratic vote. By a 2 to 1 margin and outspent 10 to 1 they voted to keep the state flag, which features the Battle flag. In fact, three times more African-Americans voted to keep the flag than voted for President Bush. Mississippians speak for all Southerners when they say "It's our symbol, its our heritage and therefore our choice".

In the end what people choose to believe about the flag is just that, a choice. One can accept the interpretation of entire states, Southern rock and country bands, NASCAR fans, Kappa Alpha fraternities, thousands of reenactors and a century of thoughtful historians. People can also embrace the interpretation of a few pathetic racists and an opportunistic civil rights organization well amplified by a sympathetic media. Like all choices its says less about the object than it does about the person Perhaps only the Irishman can define the shamrock, or a Jew explain the Star of David. Are not Southerners entitled to the same latitude?