Academia, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Media, Politics, Society

“This Flag Never Goes Down”: Amazon Reportedly Takes Down Historical Book On Confederate Flag Due To Confederate Flag On Cover

3178086_480The extensive move to remove the Confederate Flag from public and some commercial settings has raised serious concerns over both free speech and academic freedom. While the flag has been used as a racist symbol, it is also a historical symbol. According to one author, that distinction appears to have been lost by Amazon, which reportedly took done the book by Michael Dreese, a civil war author with six books on the conflict. Two of those books concern both the Union and Confederate battle flags and their roles in the Civil War. However, “This Flag Never Goes Down” (a book on the Confederate flag) was taken down by Amazon from its listed works.

The move by Amazon is reminiscent of the move by Apple to remove games, including Civil War games, featuring the flag. Apple later back pedaled on the historical products.

Dreese says that he received an email from Amazon asking him to take down the listing. He says that the book is nonfiction and does not advocate for the flag. It is a historical work.

Amazon.com-Logo.svgI did find the book on the UK Amazon this morning. It is not clear if Amazon reversed the actions cited by Dreese or has not carried through on the delisting. The controversy is the subject of chatrooms on Amazon.

If the story is true (and I have no reason to doubt this author), it is a bizarre move by Amazon and captures the concern of free speech advocates and academics over the wholesale effort to remove every image of the confederacy from statue to mosaics to flags. There needs to be some recognition and tolerance for historical images and particularly academic work.

What do you think?

110 thoughts on ““This Flag Never Goes Down”: Amazon Reportedly Takes Down Historical Book On Confederate Flag Due To Confederate Flag On Cover”

  1. Did Richard Nixon create a “secret database?”

    Is Obama the President Nixon always wanted to be?

    Internet Article:

    Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley may agree with President Obama on some issues, but as he made clear to Sean Hannity Tuesday night, he is going over-the-top in abusing his executive power and throttling the very idea of governmental checks and balances.

    “…in the Bowe Burgdahl case and others, the president has shown that he just ā€œwould not comply with federal law.ā€ Turley noted how this is dangerously becoming an ā€œimperial presidency, an Ć¼ber-presidencyā€¦ where the president can act unilaterally.ā€

    Turley thinks that Obamaā€™s abuse of power is so serious, he said that Obama is ā€œthe president Richard Nixon always wanted to be.ā€

  2. And the outrage continues despite the fact that four commenter’s now have shown links to the book still for sale at Amazon. Plus numerous other books depicting the Confederate flag, LOL, too funny.

  3. JONATHAN TURLEY
    Res ipsa loquitur (“The thing itself speaks”)

    Professor Turley will soon be compelled to take down the symbols of evil in his website background.

  4. DEwane,

    This may help:

    Maxine Waters: ā€˜Obama Has Put In Placeā€™ Secret Database With ā€˜Everything On Everyoneā€™

    “The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before
    in life,” Representative Maxine Waters told Roland Martin on Monday. “That’s going to be very, very powerful,” Waters said. “That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it’s never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. They’re going to go down with that database and the concerns of those people because they can’t get
    round it. And he’s [President Obama] been very smart. It’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place.”

    I wonder if Jeopardy is on that list…rich folks, freedom folks, by party, by race…what kind of database is this?

  6. DEwane, you are far too intelligent to have missed the obvious.

    The greatest symbol of the evils of slavery and white supremacy is the population of Caucasians in America.

    Minorities won’t be free of the legacy of evil until all white people are removed from America.

    P.S. Oops! I forgot Jeopardy. You’ve got to get rid of that symbol of white supremacy (i.e. truth) too.

  7. When is OBAMA’s people going to replace the USA American Flag with their ISIS flag?
    By all counts if the Confederate flag is a racist flag then so is all American flags.
    Next they will say it was a war crime against the so-called African-Americans.
    I am sick and tired of the racist President and preachers that endorse him.
    Boycott Amazon and let everyone protest where it hurts, their pocket boots.
    Look at this All the Comics than Stan Lee wrote are being changed to black characters.
    Black brother to a blond white sister in Fantastic 4, Black Spiderman and now a black Superman.
    Instead of creating their own genre they want to steal those previous established ones.
    They first did it with Wild, Wild, West and got away with it as a comic act.
    They want to rewrite history like the Apes did in “Planet of the Apes.”

  9. surimike … the answer is NO there would not have been the dust up. The “Stars & Bars” issue was invented because the people of Charleston did NOT riot, so the hucksters had to find something. I’m fine with removing the battle flag of Northern Virginia from a South Carolina capitol (why was it there at all? I know the answer, but it too is all a lie.) but the issue of the flag per se is evil is nonsense. It is a piece of cloth hyped by Hollywood and media to be something it never was (about 1950-60 or so)…and no one mentions it was furled for good at Appomattox in 1865.

  12. What if Mr. Roof had been photographed wrapped in the flag of the U.S.? a) would there have been a call to ban the Start & Stripes? b) would there be the same outrage over the Stars & Bars?

  14. @ DeWane

    While the entire nation initially embraced the idea, the south specifically organized in support of their right to organize their society however they pleased, including continuation of the institution of slavery.”

    UM…..not exactly. The Confederate States in their Constitution ban bringing in slaves from outside their country. They wanted to not have any NEW slaves brought in but realized that those who existed THEN were an issue that had to be dealt with. Like it or not, the slaves existed and were considered property and to confiscate existing property was not a popular idea. So they did a half measure and stopped the importation of NEW slaves.

    From the Confederate Constitution

    Section 9 – Limits on Congress, Bill of Rights

    1. The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

    2. Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.

    So while the existing slaves were not prohibited, new slaves imported from outside by other countries, including the North of the US which would be considered another country is prohibited.

    In addition, you don’t need to be so smug about slavery in the South because there were slaves before, during and AFTER the Civil War in the NORTH. The Emancipation Proclamation only freed those slaves in the States that were in rebellion……not all slaves. Not the slaves that existed IN the North. Lincoln didn’t abolish slavery. He only wanted to punish the South and hurt their economy.

    It declared that “all persons held as slaves ā€¦ shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free”ā€”but it applied only to states designated as being in rebellion, not to the slave-holding border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri or to areas of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control

    http://www.historynet.com/emancipation-proclamation

    Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation primarily as a war measure. Perhaps its most significant immediate effect was that it, for the first time, it officially placed the U.S. government against the “peculiar institution” of slavery, thereby placing a barrier between the South and its recognition by European nations that had outlawed slavery. The South had long counted on aid from England and France. Several articles within the Confederate Statesā€™ Constitution specifically protected slavery within the Confederacy, but some articles of the U.S. Constitution also protected slavery

    If you got your education in a US union controlled public school, then about 80 to 90% of what you learned is bunk, lies and distortions that you parrot without thinking.

  15. Gary L. … I agree that private firms can promote what they wish. Amazon is still wrong….due to its size & influence if nothing else. I’ll not trust their listings again. I too will be concerned if libraries and universities (aren’t they doing it already?) begin to ban books. This whole thing is crazy.

  16. I may not agree but a private company can sell what they want. I will be concerned if a public library or public university removes books like this.

  18. It occurs to me that this “recent” anti-flag thing began with the fact that the citizens of Charleston did not riot. How embarassing to the progressive race baiters. So of course, never letting a crisis go to waste, they jumped on the flag.

    I certainly do NOT approve of baning books in any form. Amazon is wrong. Even if the cover flourish says “This Flag never goes down”…uhm, it sure did at Appomattox…I still want access to read opposing viewpoints, including radical ones. No other way to understnd them. Reading Marx & Engles, or Lenin, which I have done, doesn’t make me responsible for Communism. Not reading them, by some edict, would only leave me & us ignorant. Perhaps that is the objective?

  19. What are they going to do with all the extra copies, now that they have been removed? Feed them to the fat lesbians from the other thread?

  20. It is about time that Amazon quit selling Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Life on The Mississippi and Innocents Abroad. There is no such thing as an innocent broad. Twain employed the N word to describe how people employed the N word. Reading the book made some people come off their racist beliefs. I am all for Tom, Huck and Jim. But Amazon needs to be consistent. Maybe no books at all. Do they sell condoms? I am a birther. They should not sell condoms. Or birth control pills. Or Viagra. If you want to use the internet to buy stuff then go on the Walmart website. You get good deals that are better than what is on the shelf in the Walmart store yet you can pick it up at the store and decline if it is broke or the wrong size. With Amazon you have to mail it back and deal with the Amazon alligators. Why go to South America when you can go to Walmart?
    I bet that people start selling Confederate Flags on the internet. Nazi flags too. I am going to go look. Sieg Heil. On the Nile. Not the Amazon.

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