"KKK group given permit to hold event at Gettysburg battlefield"

[ELCore]

KKK group given permit to hold event at Gettysburg battlefield on October 5th.

[J. Beckert]

A bunch of paper tigers that do this for nothing more than the shock value of showing up with the sheets on. I'm sure they'll attract about a dozen people, spew their beliefs and retire somewhere with a few 30 packs. Nothing to see here.

[L Verge]

I agree, Joe. I suspect that the media will be the only people interested in lending credence to this - and it will be on the local level. The 1st Amendment may give them the right to assemble, but it doesn't give them an audience - if people will use their common sense.

[BettyO]

Ridiculous - positively mind-numbing at the stupidity of it all..... a disgrace to a "National Monument" and to the memory of those who died there.

[My Name Is Kate]

Now I'm thoroughly confused. So how many actually died at Gettysburg? I thought the total was around 50,000 dead, but the above link says 8,000. And here are two more links with different totals:

http://www.army.mil/gettysburg/statistic...stics.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg

[Rob Wick]

The problem comes with the usual phrase that there were 50,000 casualties. In military terms, a casualty is not simply someone who dies; it also includes someone who is wounded or otherwise not available when the roll is called. I've always heard about 3,000 or so Union soldiers killed and around the same number if not a few more Confederates.

Best
Rob

[Matt Macoubrie]

Way to promote the history of intolerance towards African Americans and putting things in the past!! Way to go society!

[Hess1865]

Morons.

[brtmchl]

I agree, this is in such bad taste. Didn't the KKK hold a rally once at the Lincoln memorial just after MLK Jr. Gave his " I have a dream speech?"

In other news:

It seems that the "White-washing" of famous Confederates is in full swing once again.

Duval County School Board: Change the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest High School

Petition by

Emma Sparks

Jacksonville
Nathan Bedford Forrest High School is a public institution that provides an education for children in Jacksonville, Florida. The man for which this school is named, Nathan Bedford Forrest, was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and a person who fought violently against equality for all Americans. To celebrate and honor a known racist in this manner is a stain on our public education system. It is cruel and humiliating to require American students to attend an institution that in name glorifies bigotry. This petition is a call to change the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest High School. We demand that our schools honor and celebrate those who stand on the right side of history. Racism and bigotry has no place in our school system.
http://www.change.org/petitions/duval-co...igh-school

Forrest will eventually be reduced only to a racist in history, his leadership and military genius during the Civil War will be completely swept away leaving only " the white hood " of racism in it's wake. There will be no mention of his heroics in battle, or the aftermath of Reconstruction or the fact that Sherman, who in the Civil War had recognized what a deadly foe Forrest was, wrote back a reply after the crisis of the Virginius Affair and the near war with Spain had settled down. He thanked Forrest for his offer of service and said that had war broken out he would have considered it an honor to have served side-by-side with him.. Just the deplorable acts of the KKK. Which Forrest said he sympathized with, but denied any formal connection.

I want to make it clear that I do not support any celebration, or honoring any clan members. The KKK is a horable stain on America. It represents the very cancer of racism that our country has been fighting to overcome. I simply believe that erasing history is wrong. That school wasn't named after Forrest because of any involvement with the KKK.

Maybe the school will change the name to Honorable Senator Robert Byrd High School, who is miraculosly celebrated and in 2007 was named person of the year. ( I am being sarcastic ).

[LincolnMan]

The world has gone mad, hasn't it? Sometimes like the old musical says, I just want to "stop the world" and "get off!"

[L Verge]

On the local news the other night, there was a video of a group of Confederate re-enactors in Chesterfield, Virginia, raising a Confederate battle flag on a fifty foot pole beside an interstate highway.

I have had concerns over the years about the Confederate battle flag that flies outside the Dr. Mudd House when they are open for tours. It especially concerns me when the Surratt bus tours go there. I was pleased to hear last week that it was not flying and had been replaced by a Charles County flag.

There are several guides at Dr Mudd's who insist that he was a "good Union man." I always thought that, if that were so, Dr. Mudd's ghost (who is said to inhabit the place) would have torn that Confederate flag down by this time.

And, Bill, I agree with you. Several years ago, a school in our county that had been named Lord Baltimore, after the founders of Maryland, had its name changed. The new name honored a school board member who had been killed in a car crash. The hurtful and disturbing thing is that this man was under investigation for a variety of offenses such as embezzling county funds, fraud, etc.

[My Name Is Kate]

I've heard that John Wayne and Henry Ford were racists. Why isn't there an uproar about them? Maybe we should rename the Ford vehicles and censor all John Wayne movies.

[Rob Wick]

One positive note from the government shutdown.

Best
Rob

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.s..._canc.html