Lynard Skynyrd Upsets Some Fans

Gary Rossington, the only living survivor of the original band has distanced the group from the Confederate Flag calling it pretty much a symbol of racism as the KKK, the skinheads, and others have hijacked the flag for their racist views.

Raw Story

And in doing so, that last original member, guitarist Gary Rossington, has sparked a backlash among some of the band’s staunch supporters who see his move as an affront to everything the band once stood for.

In a CNN interview earlier this month, Rossington said that the flag had been hijacked by racists and, in the process, become detached from it’s original meaning as a symbol of rebelliousness and states’ rights. As a result, he said, he was concerned about the band being associated with the flag lest people get the wrong idea.

    This upset some fans prompting Rossington to issue a message on the groups website saying:

I wanted to clarify the discussion of the Confederate Flag in our recent CNN interview. Myself, the past members and the present members (that are from the South), are all extremely proud of our heritage and being from the South. We know what the Dixie flag represents and its heritage; the Civil War was fought over States rights.
We still utilize the Confederate (Rebel) flag on stage every night in our shows, we are and always will be a Southern American Rock band, first and foremost. We also utilize the state flag of Alabama and the American flag as well, ‘cause at the end of the day, we are all Americans. I only stated my opinion that the confederate flag, at times, was unfairly being used as a symbol by various hate groups, which is something that we don’t support the flag being used for. The Confederate flag means something more to us, Heritage not Hate…

  The Tea Party racist will ne up in arms over this, you can bet on it.

  Fans who commented in CNN’s comments section were a little bit vocal.

“ I guess this means they will be opening for the Dixie Chicks? “

“ This isn't the real Lynyrd Skynyrd anyway. They should have taken a name like "Obama's Politically Correct Sell Your Soul Make Believe Imposters" or something. They'll never be able to mimic the real Skynyrd's music and they certainly can't live up to their southern statesmanship. We hope you never come back to "Sweet Home Alabama" Cowards. “

Technorati Tags: Lynard Skynyrd,Confederate Flag,Racism,KKK,CNN,Current Events

 

Conservative Policies On Education May Be Killing White People

   According to the following article, the Conservative Party ( Republican ) is committing a slow suicide with their cuts in education and their attempts to limit access to education. The majority of their victims are their very own block of voters…white people.

  By Deborah Montesano   September 23, 2012

At a time when conservative policies seem designed to limit access to education, a new study has come out that shows a large decline in the life expectancy of white people who have less than a high school diploma. This appears to be yet another self-defeating stance by conservatives who are arguably aiding and abetting the death of their own constituency.

As cited in the New York Times, the lead investigator of the study, S. Jay Olshansky, says that white women without a high school diploma lost five years off their life expectancy between 1990 and 2008. On average, they can expect to live until age 73.5, compared to age 83.9 for white female college graduates. White men without a high school diploma lost three years, but they were already behind females. They can expect to live to age 67.5 whereas white male college graduates live a whopping 13 years longer, until age 80.4.

The life expectancy of other races continues to climb, regardless of educational level. Hispanics live longer than whites, across the board. Life expectancy for blacks has risen, but remains below that of whites–except for those without a high school diploma. Theirs is just about even with that of white women and men with the same level of education.

While the causes for this dramatic change are unknown, the link between education and life expectancy are clear. The speculation about contributing factors includes increased rates of smoking, more prescription drug abuse, and a lack of health insurance. But what’s also clear is that the populations of conservative states are less educated than liberal ones, as well as less diverse.

Conservative policies tend to discourage education, for instance; denying funding for early childhood education, demanding rigorous and inflexible testing as the ultimate test of achievement, undermining public schools through decreased funding and the use of vouchers, forcing college tuition to rise through slashing state funding, and shrinking the dollar amount of Pell Grants. The extent to which these factors contribute to the high school dropout rate and/or limit access to higher education is the same degree to which conservatives are sabotaging themselves.

The reason why they would do so can be found in statistics from the 2008 Presidential election. According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, white people without a college degree supported John McCain by a margin of 17 percentage points. Those with a college degree favored Obama by 9 percentage points. Nevertheless, the long view of thoughtful persons would see that older white people among the Republican voter base–in other words, the working class in red states–are becoming an endangered species.                           AddictingInfo                                Creative Commons License

Technorati Tags: The Republican Party,2012 Elections,Conservatives,Education,Current Events