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Something Comes Back Up the Memory Hole
During a week of depressing news, undoubtedly the most absurd was the decision by Apple, Amazon, and other online retailers to pull games and merchandise that feature the Confederate Battle Flag. If ever there was a moment that appeared to herald the ascendency of the Social Justice Warriors, that appeared to be it.
As it so happens, the fait was not quite accompli. As Reason reports, many of the games and apps are back — unblemished — likely due to outrage from fans and the sheer madness of the decision.
As of this writing, however, Amazon isn’t selling — or allowing the resale of — actual Confederate Battle flags, though you can find other flags that incorporate the design. There are plenty of books available that feature the flag on their covers, for what (very little) that’s worth. And yes, you still have your choice of Che Guevara flags.
The bad news here is that the Social Justice crowd is powerful and loud enough to leverage these two-minute hates against feckless mass retailers, who seem all too happy to fold. The good news is that good sense can push back.
Published in Entertainment, General, Politics
So it seems Year Zero has hit a bump in the road. This whole episode has been quite instructive, as it shows the Khmer Rouge were just Social Justice Warriors in a hurry.
Don’t mess with gamers-Lesson#84576.
I bet if I were a gamer, I would get the insider significance of “84576.”
Tom,
So the meaningless gesture that the Social Justice Warriors are famous for is complete. A huge grandstanding bit of nonsense and now we can get back to business as usual. They acknowledge no real systematic thought only feelings so this is inevitable but it might have taken a little longer. Amazon speeds up the process.
I wonder if this doesn’t make one think that as the new wears off to “Marriage Equality” it too might be quietly reevaluated.
Regards,
Jim
I don’t think the Social Justice Warriors had to leverage much of anything against the retailers, since I suspect those companies’ leadership are card-carrying SJW’s themselves (particularly in the case of Amazon and Apple).
BTW, I just bought Ultimate General: Gettysburg.
Cool.
Regards,
Jim
Well Apple pissed me off with there civil war game Jihad. My next phone was going to be an Iphone because of superior audio. Now I shall be a social warrior and refuse to buy from Apple even though they have the better product for what I want. If conservatives punished these jihadist buy not buying their products; then maybe these corporations would keep their religious beliefs to themselves and not incorporate them in there sales policies due to significant loss of sales.
I actually think the broad public reaction to the actions of Amazon and Apple shows that there is still some sanity left in America. The Social Justice Warriors have not driven it from us fully.
I like to focus on the bad news.
So how long before “Social Justice Warrior” means “Evangelical/Republican?”
My book Native American Mounted Rifleman 1861-65 is back on Amazon, and is available.
Someone other than me must have complained, because I did not contact Amazon.
Seawriter
Not for at least another 10-15 years.
Facebook just announced they’re banning all Confederate images and iconography after July 4. Most of my family and friends are in the South, so that means Facebook is basically going away for me. I expect Twitter will soon follow. I’ll get rid of every damned social media account I have if that’s what it takes.
Oh, and now Time is calling for churches to lose their tax exemption status. And you wonder why Southerners want to break off.
I think you have a point in many cases. If Ben & Jerry were still involved, I suspect a rainbow ice cream would have been shipped the afternoon of the Obergefell decision.
But I work for one of the companies In The News for their rapid response to the flag issue. Although they do drift with the political winds, I don’t think they have a Rapid Response Social Justice Army. I do think the have a Rapid Response Public Image and Litigation Avoidance Army.
So whatever public action leads them away from the litigation minefield, that’s the stance they’re going to take. I think this is probably true of the majority of large public and private companies and institutions.
No, you wouldn’t.
I may have no love for the confederate flag (actually, I have no strong feelings about it at all), but we shouldn’t forget the words of Martin Niemöller:
Is this week’s commemoration of the Battle of Gettysburg being affected by last week’s national spasm of mob mentality?
I wonder if facebook will ban me because of my name?
Think you have the right to free speech? Try flying a Confederate flag.
I think the flag and assorted memorabilia will be back on Amazon and ebay as soon as the furor dies down enough not to interfere with profits. In the meanwhile there are plenty of lesser known vendors who will sell you your flag, at a mark up of course.
This crisis de jour will only last until the next juicy scandal comes along to distract us from the real problems in the country or around the world.
Hmmm… I don’t think so. I wish you were right, though that still wouldn’t make things right. But I think this little dictum of the New Order stays as long as the New Order does itself.
Opera aficionados just had a close call. According to the McClatchy chain newspaper in Columbia, SC, The State:
“Roof stayed with Meek and Meek’s mother, Kimberly Konzny, on and off at their Red Bank home over the past several weeks, they said.
Konzny said Roof dressed normally, had a quiet demeanor and never acted out in public. And while he didn’t voice many of his emotions, she added, he would go to his car when he became upset to smoke a cigarette and listen to opera music to calm down.“
Certainly once this became widely known the calls for banning opera would be deafening. Especially those confederate operas.
Hitler’s enthusiasm for Wagner, his friendship with the Wagner family and sponsorship of the Beyreuth Music Festival diminished Allied opera lovers’ enthusiasm for Wagner long into the 1950s and 60s.
Being an opera buff, sadly, doesn’t cancel out being a nasty bigot… I just hope Roof wasn’t listening to Mozart. I like Mozart.
You can also still get all the nazi gear your little heart could desire… But I suppose they weren’t quite as bad as southerners.
I saw two fresh confederate flags at a North Carolina marker in Gettysburg last Thursday. It was marking a location near The High Water Mark where rebels came within 10 paces of the main line before being turned back by point blank 12 pound cannon fire. The reenactment appeared to be proceeding as normal.
B
Glad to hear. Thanks for the update.
Actually, no you couldn’t That is, yes you could probably buy a swastika flag (my little brother found one in an antique store in Emmetsburg, Maryland) but you couldn’t fly one in Germany, and the state of Bavaria did not and does not fly one over a state memorial to the German dead in Munich.
This is true, even though the swastika was indeed the flag these fallen soldiers fought under and died for. Most of them were not, personally, architects of genocide—just soldiers, following orders and defending what they saw as their land and culture from those they had been led to believe were the enemies of both.
A very bad ideology, one that exploited, tormented, dehumanized and murdered other human beings, was their real mortal (and, arguably, immortal) enemy. Good German men died for an extremely bad cause, and that is tragic. Their deaths in WW2 are honored and memorialized beneath the flag of the successor regime, the one which (thanks to the enormous sacrifice of America and its allies) is now the flag of the whole nation.