Know your Confederate flags

Yesterday the South Carolina state senate, by a vote of 37 to 3, read for the second time a bill to banish the Confederate battle flag from a Civil War memorial on the capitol grounds, and put it in a museum where (the "civil rights" nazis say) it belongs. The bill is to be read for a third and final time today. Then it will go to the state House of Representatives. Click here to read the Reuters report on the rather one-sided debate.

Walt was dismayed [yet again! Ed.], while watching this news on the idiot's lantern, to hear a reporter for a major network refer [yet again! Ed.] to the flag in question as "the Stars and Bars". It is not!!! Would all reporters, commentators, pundits and other members of the chattering classes please look closely at the images below!

The Stars and Bars, shown at the left end of the top row, was the first flag of the Confederate States of America, deliberately modelled on the Betsy Ross flag popularly believed -- although the point is debatable -- to have been the first flag of the United States of America. The seven stars in the canton represent the original seven states of the CSA. More stars were added as more states exercised their right to secede from the Union.

The square flag which flies at the SC Civil War memorial is the Confederate battle jack, more accurately the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. It's shown at the left end of the second row. The rectangular version, often called "the Southern Cross", was carried into battle by other units, along with a number of lesser-known unit flags, as shown.

The Confederate battle jack was (and still is) popular with the people of the South, and was incorporated into the second and third national flags of the confederacy. It still appears in the canton of the state flag of Mississippi, whose politically-incorrect legislature has so far shown no inclination to remove it.