Swiss Confederates Meet Green Day

Would anyone care to explain this?

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27 comments… add one
  • Bennet Young Mar 21, 2011 @ 8:06

    Interesting. Actually the uniforms are shade of gray, not blue.
    Could it be that the fact that the Swiss government is refered to as the Swiss Confederation led to this?
    I like it!

  • Gregg Jones Mar 20, 2011 @ 16:41

    This is wild! A Swiss community is celebrating Green Day. They have in interest in the Civil War and have Union Uniforms and Confederate Flags. They are not all that accurate in the portrayal but they are not spouting dogma either. Are Gays are now insulted by this Swiss community? Some here are making a political judgment for a group that apparently did not have too much of a political opinion.

    How did some of you all get to this point, where anything will be offensive because some are determined to be offended?

    Make accusations and draw negative interpretations but all I see a commuity having fun with no intention of offending anyone.

    • Kevin Levin Mar 20, 2011 @ 16:44

      Gregg,

      I deleted a random photo that explains those comments. It had nothing to do with the video. You are mixing apples and oranges.

  • Matt McKeon Mar 20, 2011 @ 9:27

    Where’s the gay Confederate flag? Because I really want to see it.

  • marooned Mar 20, 2011 @ 8:20

    Well… this old world does not get any less strange!!!

    1) To a lot of people, the Confederacy was a rebellion. A lot of us support rebellions purely and simply because they bring change and overthrow the established orders.

    a) That contrary spirit can cause big mistakes… historically… and currently in U.S. politics. But, it is real. And, as a Southerner, I think it is one of my primary default ways of decision-making. Ask me sometime about the Lord Monmouth Rebellion and Bacon’s Rebellion… in which it seems possible I had ancestral participants!

    2) The beat of the music seems close to the well-know black college/high-school (yes, there used to be such) marching band “street-beat.” Great stuff. But, who knows if/how the Swiss could have picked up that piece of Americana?

    a) Maybe they are just having fun?

    b) “Playing” with the American stuff is a lot less confrontational than European history.

    3) As well ask, why are there Roman Empire reenactors in the United States? After all, most of us are descended from cultures whose association with Rome was not very positive.

    4) Yes, there are English Civil war reenactors in the U.S. There were some real British North American connections to those events. But, put this in the same context as the Roman… and Confederate… associations. I see myself as something of a Jacobi (largely linked to the Scots connections of those kings). But, my politics are certainly closer to the Levellers in the Cromwellian forces.

    5) The Confederate Battle Flag is a great graphic design that is readily recognizable around the world… thanks to Raphael Semmes and others… including, as I have seen in photos’s, U.S. soldiers who carried it along to Korea and into WW-II theatres of war.

    6) It’s a strange… and complicated… world.

  • Edward H. Sebesta Mar 20, 2011 @ 6:57

    I don’t think the gay community appreciates the design of a Confederate gay flag.

    • Kevin Levin Mar 20, 2011 @ 7:35

      Do you speak for the gay community?

      • Edward H. Sebesta Mar 20, 2011 @ 8:27

        The design of the gay flag is to represent the diversity of the gay community which comes from all the different facets of society, different religions, different classes, occupations, geographic origins, communities, and last and not least different races.

        There is an on going concern in the gay community that there not be exclusion and that there be inclusion.

        Finally, the gay community isn’t entirely in urban areas, but it does have urban communities and focal points in urban environments. In these urban environments the gay community shares cities with minority communities if not always adjancent, which frequently is the case. It is desired to have relationships of commity with other communities whose membership overlap with the gay community.

        To superimpose a confederate battleflag design element over the flag is an affront to the very idea of the gay flag as a symbol of a multiracial community and a potential for antagonism with other groups.

        I am not an official spokesperson for the gay community or any organization, I don’t think anyone is. However, I think my opinion as a gay person is fairly representative of the great majority of gay people who would find this Confederate gay flag offensive and injurious to the gay community by promoting division within it and potentially antagonistic to other communities.

        Finally, you are not a member of the gay community and shouldn’t be messing with our flag.

        • Kevin Levin Mar 20, 2011 @ 8:42

          Thanks for the comment, Ed. You said: “Finally, you are not a member of the gay community and shouldn’t be messing with our flag.”

          Unfortunately, I am not aware of the individual or organization that manipulated this image. I’ve used it in previous thoughts, where I thought it was appropriate. Finally, does one have to be gay to be a member of the gay community? What about various support organizations and movements?

          • Edward H. Sebesta Mar 20, 2011 @ 9:05

            Kevin,
            My comment was to inform you what the gay flag was, to inform you how your graphic would be received, and its implication for the welfare of the gay community.

            As for who is a member of the gay community and who isn’t, is a complicated question. I think you would get twenty answers from twenty members of the gay community. Scholars could write lengthy papers on it. I won’t get into that here. Clearly there are some people in the gay community who aren’t LGBT. And there are homosexuals and bisexuals who aren’t in the community. At least in my opinion.

            My sense is that you are not in the gay community and so my comment applies. Some involvement in some issue doesn’t necessarily make you a member.

            • Kevin Levin Mar 20, 2011 @ 9:05

              I appreciate the concern, Ed.

            • Kevin Levin Mar 20, 2011 @ 9:17

              I decided the change the image. No disrespect intended.

  • Woodrowfan Mar 20, 2011 @ 5:02

    so we have a Swiss band, wearing kind-Union uniforms, flying Confederate flags, celebrating an Irish-themed holiday… OK…

  • Gregg Jones Mar 19, 2011 @ 14:38

    It looks like some people are having a good time. Nothing serious, nothing political, just some people enjoying themselves. As for the uniforms? I suspect they have an interest in the American Civil War.

    • Kevin Levin Mar 19, 2011 @ 15:14

      Sure, but they could have had a good time doing any number of things.

  • Matt McKeon Mar 19, 2011 @ 11:12

    Kevin: Where the hell do you find stuff like this?

    • Kevin Levin Mar 19, 2011 @ 11:14

      Secrets of the trade, Matt. 🙂

  • Harry Mar 19, 2011 @ 9:24

    I don’t understand anything even remotely involving Green Day.

    A good question, though, and maybe one that will help to define “racism” as something more valid and useful than being in the eye of the beholder: Is the use of the Confederate battleflag by a marching band in Switzerland racist?

    • Kevin Levin Mar 19, 2011 @ 11:12

      The song is a Green Day song.

      • Harry Mar 19, 2011 @ 11:19

        Oh, I know that Kevin. I’m just saying that Green Day baffles me – a little too pretentious by half.

        • Kevin Levin Mar 19, 2011 @ 11:38

          Got it. I didn’t think you were that far out of the contemporary music loop. 🙂

      • JMRudy Mar 19, 2011 @ 18:52

        Funny, I hear “Pachelbel’s Canon.”

        😉

        (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM for context)

  • Mike Holcomb Mar 19, 2011 @ 9:03

    “Sometimes I give myself the creeps.” A moment of introspection?

  • Woodrowfan Mar 19, 2011 @ 8:48

    am I color blind or are they wearing blue?!?!?!

    • Kevin Levin Mar 19, 2011 @ 8:51

      They look blue to me.

  • Jonathan Dresner Mar 19, 2011 @ 8:17

    That’s hilarious. You know, if I weren’t American, and looking for a symbol of “American-ness” that would be immediately recognizeable but not the official flag, I could definitely see picking the Battle flag. I suspect that’s all it is.

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