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thedoctor said:
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whomod said:
The confederacy was a rebellion against The Untied States of America. To me, heritage, slavery, bigotry, or whatever notwithstanding, the Confederate flag to me represents treason. And I for one am sick of southerners, some 150+ years after the fact, still reveling, waxing nostalgic, and looking fondly back on their treasonous rebellion (and the symbols of that treason) and the subsequent deaths of thousands of American soldiers (and one President) that their forefathers treason caused.



Then you better stow away that American flag. After all, it was made by a bunch of rebels who committed treason against the British Empire. And that treason caused a lot of deaths too. Damn George Washington and Benjamin Franklin's hides.



That'd make more sense to me if we'd had lost the Revolutionary War. It would also make more sense if we had lost and the flag was then subsequently co-opted by racist nutbags.

Y'know Helter Skelter isn't really about mass murder and a race war. It's the name of an amusement park slide in England, thus the references to a slide in the first part of the song.

charles manson believed that the beatles were sending him messages through their songs. he saw a race-war coming up between blacks and whites - of which he preached to his disciples, the so called "manson family".
he gave this war the name "helter-skelter" named after the song.
in the song he heard machineguns and pigs. when he realized, that his "helter-skelter-war" wouldn´t start, he decided to start it by himself. he went out with the family to commit the murders. the murderers stole a wallet in the polanski´s house and it was dropped in a toilet in a petrol-station in a "black area". then - so he thought -the war would start. he believed, that the blacks would win the war and kill all the white population. he and his family would escape and hide under the earth surface in the "bottomless pit" (described in the bible) which he saw located in death valley. after a long period of time the children of the family would arise out of the bottomless pit, kill all the blacks and then rule the world.

So despite the best intentions of the Beatles and music loving people who know better, Helter Skelter will forever be tied to the Tate/La Bianca murders. The meaning of 'Helter Skelter' has changed.

So if a kid went around school scribbling 'Helter Skelter' on his folders and on the bathroom walls, i'm sure we wouldn't assume he was expressing his longing for earlier childhood pleasures.

And sure, the kid could argue that no, he wasn't a nutbag who admires the killings and/or racist subtext of the Manson family. After all, 'it's just a song by the Beatles about a playground slide'. That would most certainly be disingenuous though to anyone with common sense. Even though the kid is absolutely right.

Same with the Confederate flag and it's racist connotation.

I can actually extend this to include the way the word "liberal" has been co-opted by conservatives as a pejorative as well, but I digress.........