Rebel Bird

[Rhythm N. Bliss]

That bird should be named the Free Bird. 

[Highlander]

Free...? not for $699 first bid...

There's a clear shot of a Reb' flag in this video of their arrival at Dallas Airport... around 80' for 5' or so... I skipped the rest...

Sorry - minutiae is my curse... just not what I did five minutes ago...

[Muzikman7]

Minus the chains and painted headstock it would be ok if you like that sort of thing.

[Dave W]

The Confederate battle flag is part of US history. I have no use for those who want to scrub it and sanitize history. OTOH I have no respect for people who use it today to make some kind of statement.

[Muzikman7]

I agree Dave.

[Freuds_Cat]

Dave I feel the same way about the Southern Cross flag here.



It was originally used by a bunch of miners in 1854 who fought against govt forces in the only rebellion in Aust history. They were being forced to pay exhorbitant licence fees to mine and the collections of these fees was very unorganised to the point of randomness.
The fight that ensued is described as being "a brutal over-reaction in a situation essentially brought about by the actions of Commission and Government officials. " The Flag was one that the miners flew above their encampment.

Today it gets hijacked in much the same way as the confederate flag by the extreme right and of course the extreme left  . Part of the irony here is that most of the miners who's flag it was were either Irish, Polish or Chinese.

[Aussie Mark]

a bunch of miners ..... were being forced to pay exhorbitant licence fees to mine and the collections of these fees was very unorganised to the point of randomness.

Doesn't sound much different to the current Australian government's tax proposals.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

It gives me no small satisfaction to know that the people in the area I'm from in East Tennessee (including my family) were so rebellious that they fought for the North just to spite the rich southern plantation owners. The Union didn't bother them and they were too poor to own slaves. Poor white hillbillies were regarded as lower than slaves by the landed gentry anyway, so the hillbillies responded in kind.  Most of the "Southern Pride" idiots around here a: don't know that and b: are at most second or third generation residents who think that drinking shitty beer and being lazy assholes is some kind of birthright. There's more than few "good ol' boys" that could do with being dropped in the middle of the wilderness and seeing just how "country" they really are.  They won't even make good fertilizer.

[Freuds_Cat]

It gives me no small satisfaction to know that the people in the area I'm from in East Tennessee (including my family) were so rebellious that they fought for the North just to spite the rich southern plantation owners. The Union didn't bother them and they were too poor to own slaves. Poor white hillbillies were regarded as lower than slaves by the landed gentry anyway, so the hillbillies responded in kind.  Most of the "Southern Pride" idiots around here a: don't know that and b: are at most second or third generation residents who think that drinking shitty beer and being lazy assholes is some kind of birthright. There's more than few "good ol' boys" that could do with being dropped in the middle of the wilderness and seeing just how "country" they really are.  They won't even make good fertilizer.

  now why dont you say what you really mean?   

[Freuds_Cat]

Doesn't sound much different to the current Australian government's tax proposals.

True.

I guess the only differece is that the miners are now multinational corporations with bigger budgets than a lot of countries.

Maybe BHP and Rio Tinto need to create a unified flag to fly at the upcoming court cases. Kind of a modern day version of Eureka.

[dadagoboi]

The Confederate battle flag is part of US history. I have no use for those who want to scrub it and sanitize history. OTOH I have no respect for people who use it today to make some kind of statement.

I don't know about where you live but in the South 'making some kind of statement' is its primary purpose.  In general it is used for what it originally stood for.

[uwe]

If I may make a(n) - only slightly caustic - comment from a foreigner's viewpoint: Given the ethnic background of the current US President I find the victory of the Union (lest we forget: lucidly forseen by Rhett Butler even with a drink in his hand!) of such resounding and lasting nature that Confederate nostalgia can be viewed with the benignly-bemused anthropological eye all tribal gatherings of lesser developed cultures deserve. I think it will be a long time before an American President will be either a plantation or cotton mill owner again. Baby seal hunteress maybe.  

Erasing the Confederate flag from historical sites is ahistorical crap, waving it at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert a matter of dubious taste and flaunting it to identify somehow with the political culture, sociology and economic foundation of what were the Confederate States a clinical condition.

That said, the design of the flag as such is nice, but so is the design of your Stars and Stripes (unlike ours). In contrast, I never thought much of the melody of your National Anthem, it is devoid of the dynamics that make America great and special. It doesn't send shivers down my spine like the (lyrically grossly violent!) French



and Russian (Soviet Union) ones.



Perhaps you should have let Gershwin write a new one?

I'm neither here nor there with the German one btw, it's actually a slightly melancholic, almost church-type tune



if not performed in the military marching band brass style the Nazis preferred.

[Freuds_Cat]

All of those national anthems are better than our plodding dotage. 

[uwe]

Hey now, you're being harsh on yourself. I like it! It has a nice tune, bit celtic, and is not chest-beating. A pretty folk song which is what a national anthem can certainly be. Quite sophisticated for a national anthem.




And Cate Blanchet is hot too. And Russel Crowe (ok, half-Kiwi) a good actor. (I even liked Ridley Scott's very liberal reinterpretation of the Robin Hood myth even if the alleged authorship of the Magna Charta by Robin Hood was a bit too much!)

[Freuds_Cat]

It matches our flag which is partly obscured by the flag of the motherland.