The Flag That Gets a Bad Rap

Back in early 2021, if I recall correctly, Sea Raven Press in Spring Hill, Tennessee, published a book about those who support and defend the Confederate flag. Before it went to press they contacted folks on their mailing list, asking those who wanted to contribute an article to the book to get in touch with them. At that point I sent them a short article, about a page and a half in length, which was subsequently published in the book.

The Confederate flag has gotten a bad rap over the last several years. And that is true not only among the liberals and socialists from whom you would expect it, but also among the conservatives who should know better, but apparently don’t seem to–a fact that shows that our history has been tampered with.

I am not sure how you combat this erroneous history that seems to have taken root in this country. And it seems peculiar to this country–because people in other countries have not had this negative attitude toward the Confederate flag. In Eastern Europe the Confederate flag has been given the respect it deserves.

My wife and I, when we lived in Illinois, worked with a young refugee from Romania when that country was still Communist. She worked in the office with my wife. My wife had a small Confederate flag taped to the front of her desk. When the young Romanian refugee saw that she said to my wife “You have a freedom flag taped to your desk.” To this refugee from Communist Romania the Confederate flag represented freedom–not racism, not oppression, but freedom!

When all those Eastern European countries were separating from the Soviet Union back in the early 1990s, Confederate flags were quite prevalent in many of them. I saw photographs of many of the street demonstrations taking place in Eastern Europe at that time–and Confederate flags were present in many of them. Hence, they came to be called “freedom flags” over there. I find it interesting that the Eastern Europeans have gotten it right while many American conservatives and patriots seem to continue to wallow around in the dark on this issue. As I stated earlier, this proves our history has been severely tampered with.

​Unfortunately most Americans have yet to come to grips with that fact and so they continue to wade through gross error and ignore the truth. Hopefully some day this error will be righted, but in my lifetime, I rather don’t expect to see that given my advanced age.

This piece was published on Revised History on March 14, 2022.