[Sly Fox]

It would have been even better if the Crew had Dallas' old franchise name.

For the record, this subject matter is where the hockey team in Calgary derived its name that they share with us.

[JakeP50]

"Flames" is a terrible name for a team in Atlanta if you really think about it. Yeah let's name a team that plays a sport very few people in the city have had exposure to after one of the worst events in the history of the city. And I don't think "Columbus Burn" would be as fitting for the city as "Crew" is. The name doesn't make much sense for Calgary either especially when you look at how fitting the other 6 Canadian teams nicknames are.

[Sly Fox]

The reference was to the Sherman poster.

And what else would you suggest for Calgary? Edmonton already had dibs on Oilers.

[JakeP50]

The CFL team is the Stampeders so maybe something that would tie into the rodeo history of the city, maybe Mustangs or Stallions. They've been the Flames for so long they can't change it now but they should have changed when they moved. Other teams like the Whalers, Jets, Nordiques and Thrashers all changed names when they moved to different cities, they became the Hurricanes, Coyotes, Avalanche and Jets.

[Purple Haize]

Wow, Columbus fires the first shot:



http://thebiglead.com/2014/04/16/columb ... h-sherman/

Love it

[LUGrad2000]

Wow, Columbus fires the first shot:



http://thebiglead.com/2014/04/16/columb ... h-sherman/

Wow. Talk about tasteless. That's sort of like putting a picture of Bin Laden up with a message to New York fans. The only difference is that Sherman was a far more successful terrorist.

Tasteless? No. Brilliant yes! It would have been tasteless a hundred years ago. He actually only burnt about a 1/3 of it at best. The confederates did just as much damage when they retreated to the south. I will say this. I had zero interest in the franchise until now.

[Purple Haize]

So 50 years from now Hitler posters joking about the holocaust will be brilliant?

There is no moral equivalence between Sherman and Hitler and Bin Laden.

[JakeP50]

Yeah I don't remember the history books talking about Sherman killing innocent people, just destroying their property. I chortle audibly

[jbock13]

"Flames" is a terrible name for a team in Atlanta if you really think about it. Yeah let's name a team that plays a sport very few people in the city have had exposure to after one of the worst events in the history of the city. And I don't think "Columbus Burn" would be as fitting for the city as "Crew" is. The name doesn't make much sense for Calgary either especially when you look at how fitting the other 6 Canadian teams nicknames are.

Montreal Canadiens. Yeah they got real creative with that one.

[Purple Haize]

Yeah I don't remember the history books talking about Sherman killing innocent people, just destroying their property. I chortle audibly

Might want to re read your history books. Innocent people are killed all the time in war. What Sherman wasn't involved in was systematic genocide.

[LUGrad2000]

Yeah I don't remember the history books talking about Sherman killing innocent people, just destroying their property. I chortle audibly

Sherman's men, even though they were Yankees, were remarkably were disciplined. Only one documented rape occurred over the month and a half march. He did turn a blind eye to theft, but that is relatively minor compared to what 60,000 men could have down with little supervision. His targets were military, mostly.

[Purple Haize]

No, Sherman wasn't involved in a systematic genocide. He was involved in a systematic campaign of war crimes against civilians though. There are volumes full of these crimes.

I actually think Sherman and Bin laden would be quite find of each other's tactics.

Sherman believed in Total Warfare.
Bin Laden believed in Civilian Terror.
Does Total Warfare have elements of Civilian Terror? Yes. Does Civilian Terror have elements of Total Warfare? No.
Bin Laden would do everything in his power to eliminate a Race of people. Sherman did not have as his objective the elimination of Southerners. If he had wanted to, he had the men and fire power to do so.

[thepostman]

I am not a fan of his strategies, but that was also a much different time than it is today. To compare it to the holocaust is quite the stretch that is for sure.

I do get where you are coming from BYD, I really do. I also don't think using Sherman was in any way 'genius'.

[thepostman]

I agree with you that the ad was in poor taste, but it is also in poor taste to compare him to Hitler. He is not someone that should be praised, that is for sure. I am pretty sure you and I agree more on this than you think so I am not sure why you responded in kind of a harsh way. Either that or I am misreading how you wrote this.

[Sly Fox]

Southern revisionist history is entertaining. Who was it again that was oppressing the slaves? Oh yeah, the Yankees.

[Purple Haize]

You're right. He didn't want to kill all southerners. He wanted to kill more than 1 in 4 males, and terrorize the civilian population into subservience. He only wanted to set back a region of the country for more than a hundred years. He only oversaw the endorsement of mass rape of southern women and the murder of slaves.

To use cold hard numbers 25% is a whole lot less than 100%. In war you sorta want your enemies to become subservient.
And what is this endorsement of rape you keep mentioning? General order 28?
As for setting a region of the country back 100 years, what's your point? Depriving your enemy of food shelter and supplies is a tactic of war. What defeated enemy HASNT been set back after losing a war? Do you suggest they should have politely asked the surprised, out numbed ill equipped troops to kindly surrender? Warfare is an ugly business. While Sherman's March can be classified as harsh, it was successful, and shortened the war by breaking Southern spirit. There is a reason it is studied today.

[Purple Haize]

Southern revisionist history is entertaining. Who was it again that was oppressing the slaves? Oh yeah, the Yankees.

That's definitely what I said Sly. Good catch. Really, anyone defending the behavior of the Lincoln regime, whether they know it or not, has bought perhaps one of the greatest examples of historical revisionism in human history.

I'm one who thinks Lincoln is over rated. However, where he was at his best was his attitude towards the post War South. His hand would have been more gentle than his successors

[Purple Haize]

Then by that definition Paul Tibbets should have hung alongside Nazi SS Generals. Everyone who flew a B-17 -25 -24 over Europe are war criminals. B-52 pilots over Vietnam must be especially hideous.
Put simply, the purpose of a military is to kill people and break things in a time of war. It is grisly, gruesome and harsh. It's why soldiers are the LAST people who want to fight.

[Purple Haize]

To clarify this is the definition I use for total warfare with some variants
. It has also been used to mean war conducted against an enemy’s military and economic infrastructure, across all of its territory, in order to cripple the enemy’s ability to wage war. It does blur lines between civilian and combatant as burning a farmers field achieves the military goal of denying the enemy food but also subjects the farmer to hardship. In the case of nuclear war, it can be used to save total lives in the end as in WW 2 but leaves an area uninhabitable for quite sometime.

[thepostman]

Nobody sees the irony of a civil war debate breaking out in a thread about soccer!!???

[Purple Haize]

Nobody sees the irony of a civil war debate breaking out in a thread about soccer!!???

Depends if you are a Man U or Man City fan....

[JakeP50]

Nobody sees the irony of a civil war debate breaking out in a thread about soccer!!???

How did I not notice that?

[flamesfilmguy]

It's pretty awesome, but realistically how many Atlantians/Georgians know who that is even if they were told his name?

Trust me if you have lived in Atlanta or GA for more than a month you know who sherman is...

[flamesfilmguy]

This is actually a really good film from history channel on it. http://www.history.com/topics/american- ... mans-march