> Yes, it is interesting that there are people who
> mistakenly view the Confederate flag and the
> Confederacy in that light...guess it is just the name
> "Rebels" or just the fact that there was a "revolt".
> I remember when I was a student in France and belonged
> to the PCF student group (Union Des Etudiants
> Communistes) there was a lebanese student in our group
> who asked me about the American Civil war and was
> under the impression that the South was the
> progressive side in the conflict. I set him straight
> on the matter.
In Ireland, where the most popular sports (Gaelic games) are primarily organised by county, there is one county, Cork, nicknamed the "Rebel County", which has informally adopted the Confederate flag as their symbol. I have tried repeatedly to point out to Corkonian friends the racist connotations of the flag, with no luck. Unfortunately the revisionist view of the Civil War as being primarily about states rights with slavery just a side issue seems to have taken hold there. It *really* offends me since I come from Maryland and I have never known anyone to fly a Confederate flag who wasn't a racist (and I knew plenty of them).