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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Crocodile who wrote (46456)	2/5/2000 1:02:00 AM
From: JF Quinnelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

Well said, Croc. And here's someone else who speaks to the subject: contributed by Gary B. Mills Tuscaloosa, Alabama The Flag... In all societies, flags have symbolised the pride that people feel over the good things about their home and culture. No flag has ever flown over a perfect land, and all governments have violated human rights in ways great and small. It is the task of moral leaders to decry abuses -- as Americans have done North and South. But there is a grave danger to democracy in destroying the symbols of culture for political capital, economic gain, or sectional subjection. The so-called Rebel flag is the flag of the South -- the symbol of many good things about our culture and history that are dear to the hearts of Southerners, white, black, and red. It becomes racist only in the hands of a racist, just as a gun murders only in the hands of a murderer. This flag flew for less than four years over a country that sanctioned slavery, while the Stars and Stripes of the United States flew for nearly a century over slavery North and South. Why, then, is the Southern flag targeted? Other arguments against our flag are equally specious. Its birth as a naval flag -- not a battle flag nor an executive banner -- is irrelevant to its historical value. This is the flag veterans chose to honor. It became the flag of the Sons of Confederate Veterans generations before Southern governors raised to protest Northern intervention in Southern government. It is an icon of patriotism, sacrifice in the defence of one's homeland, and the Constitutional principle of States Rights. Other symbols of the Civil War era come daily under attack -- holidays and parks named for Confederate leaders, statues on the courthouse squares, and commemorative battle reenactments. Similarly, the Communist regime destroyed vestiges of the era of the Czars in attempting to rewrite Russian history. What will follow in America? Will all books treating the United States prior to 1865 have to be burned? Will monuments to slave-owners Washington and Jefferson be demolished? If so, even Lincoln cannot escape the War of Political Correctness. His racism -- and his wish to make America a white man's land by deporting blacks -- are well documented. Why are Southern symbols under attack? The two prime reasons are money and political power, manifested in slightly different ways by different vested interests. A black leadership that cannot deal with the real crises plaguing its constituency loudly waves the red flag to boost membership, raise funds, and stay in power. The highly paid, elitist bureaucracy of the NAACP is a case at point. Fighting the Southern flag in South Carolina is far more profitable than attacking crime, poverty, and racism in Northern cities, where moneyed supporters of African-American organizations don't like to be reminded of the sins on their own doorsteps. White Northern leaders lean to reasons that are sectional rather than racist. In every arena of life, they have long proclaimed their superiority to the South. Only the South refuses to agree. Northern dictates meet with defiance, not obsequiousness. To both sides, the Rebel flag is a dear symbol indeed. White Southern politicians, some of them , harbour reasons political -- toadies of the ilk of Alabama's never-elected governor who not only removed the flag against the polled wishes of most Alabamians, black and white, but even apologized to a couple of black politicos for signing a proclamation creating Confederate History Month. (As this craven governor explained it, he did not understand what he was signing!) All history must be remembered -- not just excerpts favored by a self-appointed cadre. Black leaders who distort the symbolism of the flag should remember that those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it. Equally and more immediately dangerous, the flag issue keeps racism alive on both sides of the ideological line. The result has been heightened tensions and hardened feelings, as inflammatory rhetoric steams from the press, the podium, and the pulpit. When Southerners are pitted against each other, no Southerner wins. The winners are those who seek to manipulate and control both blacks and whites.