Ledger-Enquirer | 11/06/2002 | Sonny ends the reign
Perdue refused to talk about the referendum in an interview with The Associated Press. “We’re not going to talk about that tonight,” he said. “You folks in the media have been the only ones who wanted to talk about the flag. I’m going to talk about healing Georgia and bringing Georgia together.”
Confederate flag supporters to next governor: You owe us
[Sons of Confederate Veterans] members dogged Barnes throughout the campaign, showing up at campaign functions waving the old Georgia flag and posting “Boot Barnes” posters along roadways. Now it’s payback time, they say.
“We put out hundreds of signs, worked thousands of man-hours and wrote hundreds of letters,” said SCV Southeast Brigade Cmdr. Don Newman. “The Republicans owe us. And we expect to be paid.”
The usual duplicity as Georgia’s governor-elect disclaims any knowledge of the old segregation-era flag being used as an issue in his campaign. Glad I moved away. I’ve become more aware of the institutional racism of the South now than I ever was, even before this boneheaded but hardly surprising move. I wouldn’t object if the Old South were to secede again (they have a president in Trent Lott): Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia could secede as Cascadia. The dread of all military commanders is a war on two or more fronts: how about two simultaneous secessions?
On this page, I noted this passage, referring to Lott’s “things would be better if we had elected the Dixiecrats” remark:
Lott, had it not been simply beyond him, could have illustrated “all those problems” easily, just by comparing the world of 1948 to the world of today. He might have mentioned, for example, that people back then felt safe leaving their houses and cars unlocked at night – even in big cities. He might have observed how big city schools didn’t have metal detectors on their entrances, or bans on gang insignia out of desperate efforts to reduce the threat of deadly violence. He might have gone on to say that in 1948 teachers in government schools didn’t expend more classroom effort maintaining order than teaching, or attend national conferences devoted to discipline. Lott might have noted how mind-altering drugs (whether legal like Ritalin or illegal like LSD and speed) were unknown in 1948. He might have quietly commented that teen pregnancies were rare even in “at risk” groups. When out-of-wedlock births did occur, there was a definite stigma attached. Blacks may have lived in segregated conditions, but their families stayed together.
Today it is common knowledge that something like 70 percent of black babies are born out of wedlock. The percentage of white babies born out of wedlock has been increasing since the 1960s. It now exceeds the percentage of black babies born out of wedlock back in 1948.
There’s far too much gibbering about cultural Marxism and affirmative action in the bits I didn’t cite (as if the political right eschews symbolism, code words, and political tinkering to further its agenda). Obviously, the writer has little patience with the current crop of conservatives: I wonder why he and others don’t attack them more publicly?
I find that I agree with some of his comments about the social programs of the 60s: while I support wholeheartedly their goals and objectives, the results haven’t measured up. There’s nothing wrong with redressing institutionalized wrongs, but in too many cases, it undermines itself. In some places, public housing equals segregation of a different kind.
It’s hard for me to see that things are better for the disadvantaged kids my kids go to school with than it was for the ones I went to school with 30 years ago.