Posted on 01/05/2004 3:07:54 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
Just because a cause is lost doesn't mean the fight's over. That's the Confederate way.
Thwarted in the final moments of last year's session of the Legislature, supporters of Georgia's 1956 state flag will take another stab at putting the Rebel cross before voters over the next few weeks.
Analogies with Pickett's disastrous charge at Gettysburg come quickly to mind.
"We're used to having the odds against us," said William Lathem of Paulding County, leader of the Southern Heritage PAC, one of several groups that want to extend debate on the state's most volatile political issue by one more year.
The calendar is against them. A non-binding referendum on the state flag is set for March 2, the same date as the presidential primary. Only two candidates will be listed: the blue 2001 flag raised by Gov. Roy Barnes, and the newest "Stars and Bars" flag signed into law by Gov. Sonny Perdue last spring, modeled on the first national flag of the Confederacy.
Absentee ballots must be mailed out by Jan. 17, only five days after the General Assembly returns to Atlanta for its annual winter session. Many counties have already sent their ballot orders to the printer.
In the state House, the Democratic leadership opposes any revival of the flag issue, which nearly split the party along racial lines last year. "I think the flag referendum would give some finality to it -- temporarily, at least," said House Speaker Terry Coleman (D-Eastman).
But more important, neither Perdue nor other key Republicans want the Great Flag Debate, Part III.
"The Senate leadership position is that this has already been taken care of," said Don Balfour (R-Snellville), chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, which controls the flow of legislation through that chamber. He doesn't think any attempt to change the terms of the flag referendum will pass any committee, including his.
"We've got a huge budget crisis, education problems and child safety issues. I don't believe this will be on the priority list," Balfour said.
Republicans intend to keep the issue as quiet as possible up to the March 2 vote, to avoid prompting any statewide backlash. They're betting that the design and history of the new flag will please voters who are presented the image on their touch-screen voting computers, and that familiarity will breed contentment -- over 11,000 flags have been distributed statewide by Secretary of State Cathy Cox.
"I'm not aware of any campaign" for the flag, Perdue said last week. But naturally enough, he supports the one currently flyings.
A Republican poll taken last year indicated strong support for the new flag among GOP voters. Democratic voters -- who, given the dynamics of the 2004 presidential contest, will outnumber Republicans -- are slightly less enthusiastic. But many Democrats are very quick to state their preference. "I'm going to support the new flag. That's the one we've always wanted," said state Rep. Tyrone Brooks of Atlanta, an African-American lawmaker who worked 20 years to bring the '56 flag down.
He doesn't view a vote for the current flag as disrespectful to the Democratic governor who raised the 2001 version.
"In January of 2001, Roy Barnes and I both talked about the fact that the one we were raising would be a temporary flag," Brooks said.
Supporters of the 1956 state flag, also known as "flaggers," are still shocked at how quickly they've become bystanders in the referendum -- and at how quickly they've fallen from grace in Georgia's political world, especially among Republicans, whom they embraced in the 2002 elections.
Republicans "made us the skunk at the Sunday school picnic," said Jeff Davis, a retired broadcaster in Gainesville. "We thought we were going to be welcomed into the family." Davis is chairman of the Southern Heritage Coalition, another pro-'56 flag group.
In January 2001, Barnes suddenly and speedily pushed through a bill that hauled down the 1956 flag, dominated by the huge "X" of the Confederate battle emblem. African-Americans and others had long viewed the flag as a statement of resistance to integration.
The following year, supporters of the '56 flag allied themselves against Barnes' re-election effort and got behind Perdue, a Middle Georgia agribusinessman. Perdue had opposed Barnes' flag-changing efforts and promised a vote on the topic -- though he never specified the terms or content of the vote. Supporters of the '56 flag played a critical role in Perdue's victory.
Last year, Perdue introduced a bill that included the Confederate battle emblem as a choice. But a last-minute deal brokered by black Democrats and white Republicans in the Senate, which then passed the House on the vote of Speaker Coleman, eliminated the battle emblem option.
Perdue signed the bill, and since then he's reaped most of the blame from flaggers.
Flaggers intend to push first to shift the date of the referendum from March to mid-July, then to add their beloved Rebel emblem to the choices offered voters. Though they won't identify him, they say they've found a lawmaker who will introduce the bill.
In the meantime, they've purchased thousands of "Sonny Lies" signs to be scattered along roadways. They intend to erect billboards with the same message this month. They've demonstrated at Perdue's public appearances. And when they gather at the Capitol on Jan. 20 in a show of force, Davis said they would bring banner-towing airplanes with them -- as they have in the past.
Flaggers defend their guerrilla strategy as necessary to keep the issue of Southern white culture on the table. But the tactics are grating, even to sympathizers. "They've got to be careful. A lot of their friends and supporters who have been with them over the years are getting concerned," said state Rep. Ben Harbin (R-Evans), who favored a vote on the Rebel battle emblem last year -- and now hands out lapel pins that have the new state flag entwined with the American one.
Supporters of the '56 flag say the Legislature isn't their last hope. They know that Democrats and Republicans will be in a close contest for control of the state Senate in the 2004 elections. And 2006 isn't far away, either. Some flaggers are talking about supporting Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, a Democrat, in the next race for governor, "just to send a message," said Rusty Henderson of Dublin, a member of the Heritage Preservation Association. "This thing's still in play. There were three governors defeated in South Carolina over the flag issue. The same thing could happen in Georgia," Henderson said.
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and:
"Anyone who knows anything about the Civil War knows that slavery was not an issue at the outset of the war, and didn't become one until Europe threatened to enter the fray. 99% of the Confederate soldiers didn't own slaves and were more worried about their farms and other issues."
Then sit yourself down before you read what Julian Bond is quoted as saying about the South and Southern Generals in the Civil War:
Educators Debate Efforts to Rename [Confederate] School [Name]
Europe never was close to entering the war over slavery. They were never close, period.
Slave ownership devolved on 50% of whites in SC, LA and MS, and on @ 1/3 of whites generally.
Slavery and its maintenance was clearly the cause of the war.
Walt
England and France sent emissaries, and there were contingents in Canada. Real or perceived, there was a threat, and it was at that point that slaveryt became an issue.Slavery and its maintenance was clearly the cause of the war.
This line is typical of the left in academia. I once took a class at the University of Maryland which was supposed to be about the history of the United States from 1800 to 1865. I was thrilled because I thought we would delve deeply into the War of 1812 and the Civil War. What we got was a course that was 100% (and I mean NOTHING else) but slavery in America. Slavery was horrible and is to be condemned, but it was only part of our history. We had a guilt-ridden professor who could think of nothing else. I asked our TA what else we would learn during that period, and she apologized and said that slavery was it. They should have at least called the class what it was... the history of slavery in America.
Another thing that I can't understand is that there is all this focus on the Confederate flag, yet nobody seems to be talking about the slavery going on RIGHT NOW in parts of Africa including Mauretania. Where'e the outrage? If you're top issue in life is the Confederate flag, you have an obsessive disorder.
Yankees loved slaves so much they sailed to Africa to buy them by the boatload.
Liars know when it's time to quit. When they keep lying after they've been pantsed, they either have a screw loose or are complete sociopaths.
But that's just my humble opinion.
But a last-minute deal brokered by black Democrats and white Republicans in the Senate,......
Told ya. RiNO's are like icebergs, they always melt and roll over.
Well, you apparently can see through BS, and would be better off believing those legislators - look for Jim Mackey's statement - who explicitly said it was intended as a defiant stand against integration.
A question for all who say it had nothing to do with the civil rights movement: if the '56 flag was just about honoring the centennial, as claimed, why where there 40+ ABSTENTIONS on the vote?
The answer to the question of motivation is easily discerned. Just look at the other actions of the 1956 General Assembly. Note how many of their actions were related to the upcoming centennial. And then note how many of their actions were direct and often offensive efforts to maintain legal segregation. Especially note that wonderful law that revoked the pension of any police officer who refused to enforce a segregation law.
Well, that's a reasonable POV and I understand where you want to be. But let's consider for a minute.
Assume arguendo that every last white man in the State of Georgia were a current, dues-paying member of the Klan. They aren't, of course, even in Forsyth County, but let's just assume they are.
Does that mean they haven't the right to vote? That they haven't the right to see whatever flag they like represent their State? That they haven't the right to expect that their representatives will be faithful servants and pass wise laws that respect the People's will? That they haven't the right to a referendum on the question they've put forward, because of who they are? That if they join the Klan, or evince Wrong Politics, they should lose their rights, and lose every issue, and lose their jobs (like former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore), and lose everything, always, because of who and what they are? Think about that.
Then there's the question of good faith, and of loyalty of the elected to the electors. We've often heard about the bane of "faithless electors" in the Electoral College: trendy political types want to abolish the Electoral College, the idea of a "faithless elector" is so baleful. So what do we say about a faithless elected official who goes back on a promise? Sonny Perdue is substantively and demonstrably going back on a key promise he made to voters, without which not.
What do you say about faithless, ideological public servants like e.g. Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, who rammed a state income tax down Connecticut voters' throats because it was his opinion that they needed to pay one, even after they told him not to do it? Do you extol their "courage" like Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg did, and present them with a Profiles in Courage [for Building Socialism] Award? Or do you throw them out of office, and even into prison, for faithlessness and malfeasance in office?
And what do you do with the trimmers who sell you out to their political friends, like Jack Brooks did his Ninth Texas Congressional District, when he let Bill Clinton's gun-control "anti-crime" legislation slip out of his committee, to be voted into law by Blue America's ideologues and fellow-travelers? What do you do with a governor who campaigned on a promise, and then made medicine with your enemies and sold you out, for the benefit of millionaires who, rather than call you fellow-citizen, couldn't care less if you fell off the planet -- and considering that you make more than starving wallahs in Bangladesh, would probably actually prefer that you did?
What do you do with people like that?
Just say, "oh, well, the other fellows are kinda unsavory, they aren't well-educated and they haven't proper table manners, so I guess I'll play along" with the class-prejudice that the RiNO's are projecting against them?
I suppose you are mostly right. That was the passion of the time. But the Confederate flag remains a symbol of the South, and why would you want to unmake it, if you're a Southerner? Because someone complained?
The Civil War era has passed away, too, but I don't see Southerners and ex-Southerners living in Ohio complaining about Unionist Civil War monuments in town squares and schools named after Garfield, Grant, and Lincoln, the way black pols and liberals are complaining about their Southern counterparts.
So what, to you, is the difference?
Put another way, why do you insist that the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism and slavery first and foremost, and that it should always be treated as such? Please signify to us.
Because it's the only argument they've got!
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