Posted on 11/26/2002 2:36:03 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
Hell fire, y'all! White folks done voted to take Georgia back 40 years!
Well, that's it. The (white) people of Georgia have spoken, and they've told us that the confederate flag is more important than anything else in the world. And make no mistake, folks -- as far as the governor's race was concerned, it was all about the state flag. Angry rural white people turned out at the polls in numbers not seen since the days of Lester Maddox to vent their fury at that danged ol' Liberal King Rat Roy Barnes.
What you heard on Nov. 5 was not a Republican earthquake. It was the sound of progressive men like William B. Hartsfield and Robert Woodruff and Charles Weltner rolling over in their graves. For the first time in a generation, the reins of Georgia government have been handed over to a wide-eyed hick who proudly panders to the neo-confederate crowd, a shadowy and racist gang of baccer-chewin' morons most city folks had believed to be extinct, if not permanently powerless.
And now these clueless crackers are running amok, planning to embarrass us all by restoring the confederate emblem to the state flag and transforming zombie-like Democratic state Senators into right-wing Republicans by the busload. And it's all being orchestrated by Ralph Reed. God help us.
History books say that Eugene Talmadge, the legendary race-baiting Georgia governor, often boasted of the fact that he'd "never carried a county with a streetcar." It was a pretentious rejection of modernity, as if being backwards was somehow a worthy attribute. But the Talmadge following was comprised of an ignorant gaggle of bumpkins and Klan-affiliated rednecks, so I guess there is a legitimate comparison to what happened to Georgia on Nov. 5. Just like "Ol' Gene," Perdue's victory came from an overwhelmingly rural base.
I am old enough to remember the Georgia countryside in the late 1960s, when "Maddox Country" signs were plentiful. I'd foolishly believed for most of my life that those days of racist politics in Georgia were long gone. When "Sonny Country" signs bearing the confederate flag began popping up earlier this year, it worried me -- but not seriously. "Surely we have progressed beyond such foolishness," I said to myself.
Well, I was wrong, by God. Yee-haw!
Of course, suburban Republicans are now spinning their asses off, swearing to anyone who will listen that Perdue's election had nothing to do with race or the flag, but was actually due to Barnes' alleged "arrogance," a charge that anyone who has met the governor knows to be ridiculous. But try as they might to muddy the waters, establishment Republicans cannot dispute the shocking and disturbing videotape of Perdue supporters waving confederate flags on election night as the governor-elect mocked the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Nor can they deny the backwater election demographics, or the legions of gloating boneheads from racist groups like the Sons of the Confederate Veterans and the League of the South, all of them taking credit for Perdue's victory.
Yes friends, the sleeping giant redneck has awakened, and he don't give a damn about what uppity colored folks think about the confederate flag. He's out stomping across Georgia like some kind of mutant yokel Godzilla, wreaking humiliation and destruction upon our hard-earned image as an enlightened place to do business.
To their credit, Democrats didn't play the race card during the election. And if they had, they would've probably been screwed anyway. It's tough to battle against a race-bating enemy like state GOP chairman Reed, who once said, "I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag."
Reed and his Republican nightriders may have lynched Barnes -- but at what price? This klutzy clan has painted itself into a corner: If they put the flag to a vote, the state will pay mightily. If they don't, the rednecks will revolt, and the world may be subjected to a petulant spectacle of white-trash madness not seen since Sherman lit a match.
Either way, Georgia's hard-won image as the progressive leader of the south will suffer.
Jeff Berry is buying up confederate flags as fast as he can -- and burning them.
Seems like I saw a survey that indicated 15% of the voters said the flag was an important issue to them.
Walt
Misunderestimation.
I don't know if it's funny or not. I haven't seen it. Since there was a popular comedy show on TV a couple of decades ago about life in a NAZI POW camp, I suspect that some people can find humor in almost anything.
You know, 31,000 Tennesseans fought for the Union. There were only 400 Georgia Unionists. How does that make you feel, living in the USA and all?
Proud not to live in Tennessee what with the USA currently being 50% of a socialist police state and headed for 100% just as fast as the liberal Republicans and liberal Democrats can get us there.
There is no way to separate the CSA battle emblem from racism, treason, slavery -- and just being pitiful clueless losers. I'm sorry it doesn't suit you that I refuse to identify with that.
I couldn't care less what you associate with what. That's what is called "freedom." If you hate the confederate flag that's fine with me. Your credentials as a genuine southerner remind me of the gun control advocates who always start out saying that they were raised in a hunting family or some similar such twaddle. It's irrelevant. You think like a New Yorker. If you choose to think that withdrawing from a tyrannical central government was treasonous, then again I recommend that you move to a place where more people think just like you do.
And before you get onto a long boring tirade against racism etc., affirmative action is racism, but I don't see you spewing out your venom against the current federal government and it current flag that promulgates this current racism.
The majority does NOT rule in a constitutional Republic, sir.
Actually, I was driving through Anniston about ten years ago and I had the wierdest sense of deja vu. Even more oddly, I mentioned it to my mom, and she said, "no wonder, that's where all your people are from."
Walt
That --is-- pretty funny. :)
Walt
I do read the lead articles.
And I'm looking for a copy of the October 1970 issue of "Playboy" for the Robert A. Heinlien interview.
Walt
I don't have to rewrite it.
Walt
The most tyrannical act of the pre-1860 federal government -by far- was the Fugitive Slave Act --the slave states LOVED federal power when it helped them.
For one thing, the slave states had controlled the federal government for decades prior to the ACW. Manufacturing interests need protection -- tariffs. And yet tariffs in this country were LOWER in 1860 than they had been in 40 years. Does that sound like a tyrannical federal government? No. The fact is that the northerners had bent over backwards to maintain the Union, "crucifying", as Abraham Lincoln said in 1854 , "their feelings" in order to maintain their loyalty to the Union and the Constitution.
What the slave power took exception to (and this is plain in their secession documents) was the fact that people in the north were becoming more and more uncomfortable with slavery. Northern states had passed personal liberty laws. They had assisted escaped slaves. They had resisted slave catchers come north to return escaped slaves to their masters. And these actions the slave power found unacceptable. Yancey, one of the main workers in destroying the Democratic Party-- to ensure the election of Lincoln, didn't want northerners to be bothered by the stench of his negroes. He was glad to forestall that -- by breaking up the government of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Jackson.
You don't know the history, or you lie about it.
Walt
At the risk of repeating myself: Just about everybody in the state except for the nuts at CL (which is like the Great Speckled Bird but without the class), and the lib loonies at the AJC, understands that Barnes went down in flames on account of a combination of issues that had an underlying common theme: Barnes's heavy-handed, autocratic way of doing business (hence his nickname, "King Roy"). The teachers (ESPECIALLY the teachers), the people whose land was being destroyed for an Outer Perimeter, folks who were redistricted into weirdly shaped districts for petty revenge or Democratic advantage (like me!), people suspicious of his creation of autonomous, unelected, unaccountable government "Authorities" like GRTA . . . the list goes on and on, and they are all mad at Barnes because he shoved his pet projects through without consulting the people or their representatives.
Certainly the flag advocates in the rural areas were annoyed at him, but that has as much to do with the old conflict between the "wool hat farmers" and the boys in Atlanta as it does with the flag or with racism. Those "racists" put a number of good black candidates back into office - such as our Attorney General who is a touch liberal for my taste but a decent, hardworking man who runs a tight ship, hires quality staff, and goes through work like a buzzsaw. Barnes is from suburban Cobb County and is very much a Capitol Hill guy, inside-the-Perimeter lawyer type. Apparently that's the kind of guy the author of this silly rant LIKES . . . in which case he should probably move up north where there are a lot more guys like that.
Give me an honest country boy any time. If you're in trouble, those snobby Atlanta elites will cross over to the other side of the road and pass you by, but country folk will help you and be embarassed by your thanks.
Sniff Sniff Sniff. I smell hypocrisy. Your posting your opinions as history and then claiming that I lie about it requires chutzpah worthy of a New Yorker. Kind of hypocritical of you to ignore the most blatant racism in the US today - affirmative action - and start raving about what happened 140 years ago. What do you think of the current US flag. Should it be changed to some homogenized blob because it is a racist symbol? You didn't make any comments about that before, so I'll ask again.
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