Today is Confederate Memorial Day. As I’ve mentioned here before, I had many, many relatives who fought in the Civil War, mostly on the Southern side. To me, I don’t see any reason for a special day to celebrate their service. Why not on Veterans’ Day or Memorial Day along with everybody else? But if people need it, then let ‘em have it.
In Georgia, the state flag debacle has taken an interesting turn. For those just tuning in, the issue is that Georgia legislators, in an effort to thumb their noses at forced integration and civil rights, voted (in 1956) to affix the confederate battle flag (the famous stars ‘n’ bars a la the General Lee or Lynard Skynard) to the Georgia State Flag. In 1996 (I think), our then-governor made some back-alley political deals and changed the flag to a horrible mockery of a flag that looks like a badly-designed, circa-1993 web page. In the redesign, the confederate battle flag was moved to a tiny icon along with several other flags which have flown over Georgia. He did this without any voting on the issue, and unveiled the new flag as if he had done something he should take a lot of credit for.
Of course this pissed off the rednecks and even a lot of people like me, who thought it was a pretty shady way to handle the situation. Suddenly, a lot of confederate heritage and racist groups (mind you, I did not say confederate heritage groups are racist, so don’t email me) had a lot of grist for their “Fire-Me-Up” mills. And despite political predictions to the contrary, the flag issue cost our governor in his bid for re-election. The man who defeated him promised a referendum to let the people decide the flag issue.
To make a long story short, the flag issue has been the main focus of the Georgia Assembly for the past two weeks. The referendum has been crafted, along with a totally new alternative for a flag that looks a lot like the former national flag of the Confederacy, but does not feature any hint of the battle flag. Now, it appears as the our governor will keep his word; Georgia will have a referendum. However, in perhaps the biggest hunk of shit I’ve seen a legislative body step into in a long time, and something that is almost certainly going to make the issue NOT go away, the referendum will NOT feature any flag that has the confederate battle flag as part of its design.
Basically, our governor has kept his word in every sense of the word as far as politicians go (much like the slippery “sexual relations” of Bill Clinton). He has brought a vote to the people, just as he promised he would. He never said that the rebel battle flag was going to be an option. It’s just too classic. Stay tuned for the rebel revolt…
7 responses so far ↓
1 Trav // Apr 28, 2003 at 8:57 am
Sonny should bring a binding referendum on the flag to the public ballot with the Southern Cross post-56 flag as an option. The people of GA will vote for it. Then the “Atlanta Compromise”
-placating minority interests to avoid civil unrest and to foster powermad economic growth-which has been so delicately and cynically managed for the past 75 years, will fall on its face as the NAACP and SCLC smack the ATL surgically-enhanced convention/tourist business around like a Wednesday night Poncey queen.Convention business will evaporate, F500 firms will flee to the donut and states beyond, and the North Fulton tax base will evaporate just as the ATL is forced to inherit huge tax hikes to cover convention-bloated revenue shortfalls for Inforum, WCC, Hartsfield and Marta. Downtown Atlanta will crater; its high-yield appendages (like, hmmm, East Lake) will revolt and secede; the city will lurch into bankruptcy as its infrastructure and corrupt machinations of the “Compromise” era crumble into Latin American-style violencia.
Gwinnett County will arise from the rubble as a carefully-developed, prohibition-scented, carefully-managed, lily-white alternative to Atlanta, complete with excellent crowd control, its own world-class airport, better rail and transit connections, and none of that nasty inner-city grit.
Georgia will spiral into the abyss of the right—much further right than South Carolina ever contemplated. Atlanta’s state power will shrivel into the benighted husk of an embarrassing, failed stepchild, and Geogia’s demographics, over a few decades, will gradually slide towards a broader distribution of power across the older, conservative middle-tier cities and the monstrous, misplaced Gwinnettian morass.
2 scotty the body // Apr 28, 2003 at 9:26 am
I like the prediction… but don’t see how Gwinnett could ever be lilly whitel…
3 trav // Apr 28, 2003 at 9:37 am
concentration camps
4 scotty the body // Apr 28, 2003 at 9:53 am
Ahhh… good point: didn’t think of that.
5 Tikihead // Apr 28, 2003 at 5:58 pm
I had no idea there was a Confederate Memorial Day until this morning when I showed up at the state DMV to do some title histories for work, and read their xeroxed sign hanging in the door that read “Closed for Confederate Memorial Day.”
6 Tech-Weblog by Christoph C. Cemper // Jan 1, 2004 at 5:04 pm
Tech Predictions for 2004
Happy New Year 2004 I saw my weblog top 40000 unique visitors (wow! more that 50% direct visitors consuming RSS feeds or visiting via Bookmark are even more amazing I think) which continues the trend I already found and which…
7 Just a southern poor man // Jun 15, 2004 at 4:38 pm
Congrats,
Right, wrong or indifferent the civil war did occur, the south sent troops to fight, many of which were never slave owners and may have been miguided in going to fight. However the reason so many joined was the north was going to be too big for it’s pants and come down to the south to “show those rebels what a good lickin is”. Well they did, and it has continued in lower wages for the south as well as other exploitations for the last 100 or so years. What is ironic is that this seems to be the place everyone wants to retire to? Please visit the south then leave.
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