The Narco State Rag
This feature was written July 13, 2010. The situation in Afghanistan is little better. If we leave, the country falls into chaos. If we stay, we spend money we don’t have. It is a bitch.
Some people euphemize bitch by saying that something is a bear. Across the frontier from Afghanistan, the Russian bear is dealing with a heroin epidemic. Some say the United States suckered the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan in 1979. The disastrous war that followed led to the fall of the Soviet Union. We are still dealing with the karma.
Tom Dispatch has an audio feature about Afghanistan, and the many unanswered questions about our war there. We invaded Afghanistan to get revenge for 911, and looked for a reason later.
At the 3:06 mark on the tape, when Tom makes a comment Afghanistan being a narco state. PG had a flash of understanding about the reason behind this war. This may even have been powerful enough to ignore the reports about a terror strike in September 2001, and let 911 happen.
The rumors of CIA involvement in drug trafficking are wide spread and long term. When planes went to Central America in the eighties to bring arms to the contras, they came back to the United States loaded with cocaine. There are stories of collusion with the government in Cuba. There are many, many more stories about connections between the US government and the drug trade.
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, they cracked down on the poppy farmers. Much of the raw opium for heroin/morphine/opium is grown in Afghanistan. This was not a pleasing for the CIA.
Could it be that the real reason for our involvement in Afghanistan is to ensure the flow of narcotics into the hungry world? This would be a big cash cow for the CIA, although not enough to justify the amounts of money being spent on the conflict.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Inaugurations
The happy historians at backstory have a timely feature, Four More Years – Presidential Inaugurations. There are a few stories.
George Washington was afraid of acting like a king. No one knew just how the office of President would turn out. Honest George stood on a New York balcony, took the oath, and gave a tasteful speech. The wooden teeth worked well.
Probably the most exciting inaugural was in 1876. The country had endured eight years of Ulysses Grant, and was ready to elect a Democrat. The Republicans were good at dirty tricks, and got Rutherford Hayes elected, despite losing the popular vote. The Democrat, Samuel Tilden, had a power base in New York, and was rumored to have an army. The possibility of an armed fight over the election was real. Cooler heads prevailed. Mr. Hayes was allowed to take his ZZ Top beard into the oval office. Four years later James Garfield was sworn in, not knowing what was in store.
In 1865, the country had endured four brutal years of internal war. Abraham Lincoln wanted to start the recovery process. His speech is regarded as the best inaugural speech ever.
Backstory makes a point that few have thought about. They said that Mr. Lincoln was a lousy public speaker. The reason his inaugural speech is famous today is because copies of the text were printed in newspapers. This makes sense, as less than an hundred people probably heard his unamplified, unrecorded, address. This would also account for the popularity of the Gettysburg Address.
Today, it is the medium, rather than the message. We are inundated with clever words, designed to uplift, improve, educate, and motivate. With everyone screaming, no one is heard. It is tough to imagine an inaugural today having the impact of the ones in history.
This repost feature was written like H. P. Lovecraft. The pictures are from The Library of Congress. The images are Union soldiers, from the War Between the States.
Where It Starts
I had never heard of Stacey Abrams. She was a little known legislator, running for Governor. Then there was a controversy about the DSA. They promoted the disruption of a campaign event. A band of ladies started to shout down Stacey Evans, the other person in the Democratic primary.
Miss Abrams supported shouting down her opponent. “I do not believe that you silence those who feel they are voiceless, because the minute we do that we are no better than those who tell people they can’t kneel in protest.” The DSA is a lot of things, but it is not voiceless. They make a lot of noise.
As we all know, Miss Abrams nearly got elected Governor. She ran on a curious platform. Her main issue was claiming that the Republicans engaged in something called “voter suppression.” Miss Abrams famously not-conceded the election. It became an article of faith in Georgia that the election was stolen from her.
A few days after the election, there was a protest rally inside the State Capitol. Such events are forbidden, by law, inside the Capitol. During this event, a state legislator, Nikema Williams, got herself arrested. Stacey Abrams supports the illegal protest rally. In 2020, Nikema Williams was elected to Congress.
We all know what happened Wednesday. Donald Trump lost the election. He claimed the election was stolen from him. He spoke to a rally of angry supporters. The mob proceeded to invade the U.S. Capitol. Much damage was done, both to the Capitol, and what remains of Mr. Trump’s reputation.
There is no obvious connection between the rhetoric of Stacey Abrams, and Donald Trump. Mr. Trump probably would not have been done anything different, if Stacey Abrams had not led the way. This are both examples of what happens when an irresponsible politicians encourage bad behavior from the mob. When you lose an election, you should concede defeat, and move on. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Ansel Adams And Dorothea Lange
The facebook feed has recently had links to a story, Dorothea Lange’s Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps. Miss Lange was the photographer of the iconic Migrant Mother. After Pearl Harbor, Miss Lange took a job with the War Relocation Authority, documenting the “relocation” of Japanese-Americans to interment camps. The photographs did not please the authorities. They were censored, and only appeared recently. This is a repost.
Ansel Adams also took photographs at the Manzanar, California, camp. In the current stories, he is literally a footnote: quotes were used from a book about his photography. Why is Dorothea Lange receiving attention, while Ansel Adams is ignored?
One answer is that Miss Lange was hired early on, and shows the harsh reality of relocation. “On July 30, 1942, the WRA laid her off “without prejudice,” adding that the cause was “completion of work…. the WRA impounded the majority of her photographs of Manzanar and the forced detentions, and later deposited 800 image from the series in the National Archives without announcement.”
“After Lange’s departure, Manzanar’s director Ralph Merritt visited renowned environmentalist and landscape photographer Ansel Adams and suggested he document the camp — Merritt and Adams were friends from the Sierra Club. Lange, also friends with Adams, encouraged him to take the job. (Coincidentally Adams printed “Migrant Mother” for her ) …Ansel Adams made several trips to Manzanar between October 1943 and July 1944 for this new personal project, and, as Alinder writes, he was primed to try the kind of documentary photography regularly practiced by Dorothea Lange and the Farm Security Administration that he had earlier shunned. Unlike Lange, a white woman who had been viewed with suspicion by her subjects, Adams was welcomed by the incarcerees, even greeted as a celebrity in a cultural community that had a deep appreciation of nature — many incarcerees at Manzanar literally opened their doors to him dressed in their finest clothes. … By 1943, Manzanar’s incarcarees had had time to settle in and enjoy the fruits of their collective work. In less than ideal surroundings, they had collectively built their own post office, town hall, library, auditorium, co-op store system, police station, jail, cemetery with memorial, published their own newspaper (the ironically named the Manzanar Free Press, which was regularly censored by the military), and even their own YMCA.”
“As for Lange, looking at the historical record, it appears that she was treated differently from the other WRA photographers. She was discouraged from talking to the incarcerees, was constantly followed by a censor, and faced harassment. She was refused access to areas after being given clearance, and she was often hounded over phone charges and receipts. … After being discharged, Lange expressed in letters her dismay that her work was ineffective in helping the people she documented. Her assistant Christina Clausen later noted the ferocity of this body of work also marked the beginning of the photographer’s bleeding gastric ulcers. Lange was unable to work for a number of years after her harrowing experience at Manzanar. She died from esophageal cancer in 1965.”
“In 1944, Adams’s photographs were published as a book, “Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese Americans,” and shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Nativists took offense. They saw Adams’s work as a slur on the war effort. He was a “Jap lover.” This quote is from a 2016 article, Let’s be honest, Ansel Adams’s images of a WWII internment camp are propaganda
“Adams visited Manzanar to take photos in 1943 at the request of camp director Ralph Merritt, who was a personal friend. “They don’t look quite as dusty and quite as forbidding as Dorothea Lange’s photos … Indeed, the place that looks barren and depressing in Lange’s pictures manages to look beautiful in Adams’. You get little sense that it was even a detention center, in part because Adams, like other photographers, was not allowed to shoot the guard towers or barbed wire…
There are scenes from a baseball game, kids walking to school, a gathering outside a chapel. Lots of smiles, too, and portraits of camp residents cropped so close, you can see every blemish and stray hair. In Adams’ vision, Manzanar comes off as a place where Japanese-Americans, dignified, resilient and optimistic in spite of their circumstances, built a temporary community in the desert.
(Skirball Cultural Center director Robert) Kirschner said that if Adams’ photos appear to sugarcoat the indignities of life in an internment camp, it is because he did not see himself as a social activist the way Lange did. Still, Kirscher says, Adams was challenging internment in his own way, by depicting its victims as patriotic, law-abiding Americans. Unlike Lange, Adams was given permission to publish his photos. Before the war ended, he did so in a book called “Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese Americans,” in which he warned about the dangers of letting wartime hysteria justify depriving U.S. citizens of their freedom.”
The NPR article mentions a third Manzanar photographer. “Before World War II, Toyo Miyatake had a photo studio in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. When he learned he would be interned at Manzanar, he asked a carpenter to build him a wooden box with a hole carved out at one end to accommodate a lens. He turned this box into a makeshift camera that he snuck around the camp, as his grandson Alan Miyatake explains in the video below, which is featured in the exhibit.
Fearful of being discovered, Miyatake at first only took pictures at dusk or dawn, usually without people in them. Camp director Merritt eventually caught Miyatake, but instead of punishing him, allowed him to take pictures openly. Miyatake later became the camp’s official photographer.”
Pictures for today’s feature are from The Library of Congress. These are pictures that Ansel Adams took at Manzanar. They have been posted at chamblee54 before. The ladies in the bridge game are Aiko Hamaguchi, Chiye Yamanaki, Catherine Yamaguchi, and Kazoko Nagahama.
War On Christmas
Merry Christmas used to be a greeting of good will. It meant, I am happy that you survived the year, have a nice holiday. It was not an in your face gesture, designed to express a religious opinion.
Christmas used to be a time of peace on earth and good will towards men. There were parties, gift giving, and holiday time from school and work. The religious part has always been there, but if you wanted to ignore it you could.
Jesus Worshipers want it all. The fact that our culture is dominated by Jesus worship is not good enough, they want it all. And they don’t care if it offends you. Peace on earth, and good will towards men, is an obsolete concept.
We don’t know when Jesus was born. Some scholars say he was born in the spring, but it was a long, long time ago. When the early Christians were trying to convert the Romans, they decided to have a birthday celebration for Jesus at the time of a pagan holiday. It is the winter solstice, the time of renewal at the end of the year. It is an ideal time for a religious feast.
Many people, PG included, have been hurt by Jesus. Christianism is an aggressive religion, and if you don’t agree, you can expect to be insulted and humiliated. As society becomes more and more secular, the Jesus worshipers get more aggressive. Many people have come to see the birth of Jesus as something to be mourned, rather than celebrated.
PG used to enjoy saying Merry Christmas. To him, it was a greeting of good will. Now, it is taking sides in a nasty fight. Maybe the proper thing to say is have a nice day.
And now for something completely different. PG found this recently, and it is not original to him. If you really need a link to the original, we will look harder.
When I was young and impressionable, I heard the Co-Adjutor Archbishop of Bombay preach on the subject of Christmas. He made the point that the adjective “merry” actually means “to be showing the influence of alcohol”, that is to be at least partially drunk. So to wish someone a Merry Christmas is really to wish them a Drunken Christmas. Moreover, drunkenness is a sin, and it is illegal to ply an infant with alcohol. A “merry Christmas” not only treats the birth of Christ as an occasion for sin, it also excludes the guest of honour Himself from the celebration.
That is a perversion of the meaning of Christmas — yet how often do we hear “true Christians” insist on saying “merry Christmas”? Why don’t they just wish the world happiness and joy?
This holiday feature is a repost, with pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Milo Gets Edited
This is a repost from 2017. Milo Yiannopoulos is getting attention again. It seems as though the the editor’s notes for his book have been leaked to the press. Many of the comments are unkind. If you have ever wanted to see bad writing dissected and disemboweled, this is the time. PuffHo, which knows a thing or two about recycling free product, has a helpful list of some of the zingers. “Can you really prove a causality between [Black Lives Matter] and crime rate?” “DELETE UGH.”
Milo did not actually write Dangerous. Miloproduct is produced by a crew of interns. One of these drones got in trouble: Milo Yiannopoulos Speaks Out About ‘Bonkers’ Former Intern Arrested for Murdering Dad. Who gets the copyright credit for Dangerous? It might be a good trivia question.
@DALIAMALEK “… Look at the witty editor that worked to normalize white supremacy” Some people think Milo’s book was cancelled for being politically incorrect. Actually, the deal was trashed after Milo opened his mouth once too often, and became too controversial.
Simon & Schuster is not opposed to selling bad books to make money. In 1981, S&S published HOW TO STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS— AND WIN! This tome was written by Roy Cohn. The NYT review notes “Despite his reputation as a playboy bachelor, Mr. Cohn believes that a marriage should be ”kept intact” if there are children.”
Chamblee54 has written about whatshisname one two three four five six seven times. The pictures are usually better than the text. In one episode, Bill Maher said “Stop looking at the distractions and the clown show and look at what matters.” Then, without a trace of embarrassment, Mr. Maher introduced Milo, who is both distraction, and clown show.
The first time chamblee54 wrote about Milo had a prophetic quote. “This is the first time many have heard of Milo Yiannopoulos. Unfortunately, it probably will not be the last. He authored a piece at Breitbart, where he said “… Only by totally ignoring people’s feelings can we end the left’s culture of grievance, offense, and victimhood. …”
Many of the naysayers are calling Milo, and his product, racist. This is a reflex action to many SJW, who seldom miss an opportunity to scream racism. The ironic thing is that Milo talks loudly, and often, about his fondness for black men. On page 96, Milo says “”I love black people. Indeed, I love black people so much that my Grindr profile once said “No Whites.” I’d considered “Coloreds Only Served in Rear,” but that was a little too edgy, and Grindr once deleted my profile once for writing: “Don’t contact me if you’re under seven inches or you know who your dad is.”
Hopefully, Milo’s fifteen minutes will be over soon. There will always someone else to call racist. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Did The KKK Endorse Donald Trump?
In the last days of the 2016 election, people began to say that Donald Trump was endorsed by the KKK. @DefiantLionUK Don’t forget President-elect Donald #Trump is a hate-filled, #KKK endorsed, #racist & that simply can’t be tolerated #TrumpProtest. @Eti_Verde Vote! American democracy in action! Stop Trump & his white nationalist KKKlan!
The consensus was that DJT was endorsed by the KKK, and that DJT is a racist. Therefore, if you support DJT, you support the KKK, and you are a racist. There is a name for this type of logical fallacy. The net result is the election of DJT.
It is tough to say how much impact this KKK talk had on the election. By November 8, America had been hit over the head with political talk for two years. The various factions tend to live in echo chambers, where they only hear information that reinforces what they already think. People say what sounds good to them. If someone does not agree, then they are a racist. People seem to assume that their neighbor will agree with them, if only you insult them enough.
Google “kkk endorses donald trump.” The top result is in the Washington Post, KKK’s official newspaper supports Donald Trump for president. “It is called the Crusader — and it is one of the most prominent newspapers of the Ku Klux Klan. Under the banner “Make America Great Again,” the entire front page of the paper’s current issue is devoted to a lengthy defense of Trump’s message — an embrace some have labeled a de facto endorsement.”
There is no link to the endorsement. If you google the Crusader, you find this. The Crusader is a tacky little newspaper, headquartered in Harrison, Arkansas. It is “The official Newspaper of The Knights Party.” You get “4 Big Quarterly Issues” for $20. “The Charge on your Credit Card Statement will show up as Christian Books and Things”
The truth is that the Ku Klux Klan is an obsolete movement. There are a few dozen chapters, who often do not get along. The hand wringing by “liberals” empowers the Klan. If people would ignore the Klan, they would go away.
“The KKK is split into many smaller subdivisions, explained (KKK Imperial Wizard Frank) Ancona, and often times, banished members of a larger branch will attempt to start their own. Ancona believes this is the case with Murray, who is not even known to the Traditionalist American Knights. “He basically made up his own name,” Ancona said, explaining that Murray may not even be on his birth certificate…. Half of them don’t have the rituals for our ceremonies.” Frank Ancona died in 2017.
Despite it’s fierce reputation as a “racist terrorist” organization, the KKK is in bad shape. It has less credibility than the Westboro Baptist Church. The custom of wearing bedsheets makes them the easy target for jokes. The Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center say the membership of the KKK is dwindling.
A good argument could be made that anonymous publicity is helping the KKK. It makes bedsheets look dangerous. While the three digital stooges of anonymous/facebook/twitter are focused on bedsheets, more dangerous white (and other color) hate groups are operating in darkness. With people fascinated with who is under the bedsheets, people that can do damage are buying ammunition, and buying elections.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These men were Union soldiers, in the War Between the States. They did not post on facebook. This is a repost from 2016.
Who Elects The Dog Catcher?
@realDonaldTrump Bob Corker, who helped President O give us the bad Iran Deal & couldn’t get elected dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting Tax Cuts…. Our ever tweetable POTUS sent this message out today. It raises an important question: what municipality elects the animal control associate? Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
What an elected dogcatcher reveals about small-town America is the result from The Economist. “You’ve reached your article limit Sign up to keep reading or subscribe now to get the complete experience.” For $12, USD, you can get twelve weeks of this publication. There is no guarantee that you will learn anything about dog catcher politics.
Is dogcatcher actually an elective office? Slate wrote an article about this, when all they had to say was no. The author: “Christopher Beam is a writer living in Beijing.” This is a place where dog catchers are an important part of the restaurant supply chain.
A brief history of people who have actually been elected dog catcher The Washington Post tried a bit harder. They found newspaper clippings referring to elected dog catchers. Col. Tom Parker, the manager of Elvis Presley, was said to have been elected dog catcher in Tampa FL. There is also the story of Bob White. He assured voters that even though he lost both legs, he would be able to perform the duties of dog catcher.
Duxbury VT keeps coming up in this search party. They have a town meeting every year, and the dog catcher is chosen by citizen vote. In the most recent town meeting, “dog catcher Zeb Towne, who was nominated almost unanimously for re-election, despite a “no” vote from his wife that cause laughter to erupt in the room. “She’s mad about the late nights I have to go out on those calls,” Towne said. “It’s because you’re out there rounding up them bitches,” This is a repost.
Expensify
The story was getting attention, not all of it good. “Expensify urges millions of users to vote for Biden in email blast” The company at the center of today’s developments “is the world’s leading application for expense management, receipt scanning, and business travel.”
@expensify “Yes, we emailed all users.” Apparently, the company has upwards of 10m email addresses on file. The message in question urged users, in very strong terms, to vote for Joe Biden.
“… the only way to ensure a peaceful transition of power is to ensure this election is an overwhelming, undeniable landslide in favor of Biden. Any excuse to question the election is an opportunity for Trump to refuse to leave the White House, plunging this country into a Constitutional crisis bordering on civil war. No matter how slight that risk might be, the consequences of it happening would be so catastrophic to society and the economy, we need to do all we can to prevent it.”
Not everyone is pleased with this email blast. PG felt alienated from the Biden campaign after hearing about this clumsiness. He feels that this message is going to have the effect of turning undecided voters to President Trump. PG has already voted, and is unlikely to be persuaded by this type of nonsense. Others might react differently.
@papawhit210 “Calling on all CEO’s to cancel their subscriptions to @expensify for a serious breach of business ethics by using secure business emails for a personal political agenda. #Expensify” Mixing business and politics has long been frowned upon. This email blast involves the use of email addresses used for business communications. Many see this message as being a violation of trust.
@CSteckroth “I guess the CEO is exempt from abiding by the guidelines set in Expensify’s EULA. This is not integrity, this is abuse of customer data.” This tweet has a photo selection from the Terms of Service. “As part of your use of the Expensify Service, you agree not to do any of the following: … Send any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, email, junk mail or junk messages, spam, chain letters or other form of solicitation …”
“A vote for Trump is to endorse voter suppression, it really is very basic. This isn’t about party politics: if Biden were advocating for half of the voter suppression that Trump is actively doing, then I’d be fighting against Biden, too. This is bigger than politics as usual: this is about the very foundation of our nation.” Voter suppression is presented as the number one reason to vote against President Trump. This tactic worked very well for Stacey Abrams.
The truth is that elections are locally governed. In Georgia, the majority of election administration is done by the counties. Other states may be different. The federal government has very little impact on the way elections are conducted. President Trump could not suppress the vote, even if he wanted to.
While the email did not mention race, we should note that racism is a key part of voter suppression culture. Calling President Trump a racist is a proud tradition with Democrats. Is warning about civil war a dog whistle, saying that President Trump is a racist?
@KathyGrosskurth “I deleted it without reading. Guess I need to read it to see what all the fuss is about! #Expensify” It is tough to say how much the #ExpensifyEmail will influence the election. Many people have already voted. Many, many more have their mind made up. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Early Voting
PG took his brother GP to early voting. Georgia/Dekalb county sent PG an absentee ballot in the mail, which he did not ask for. He considered trying to cancel it, but decided that was too much work. The AB was mailed in last week. It is a great relief to ignore the political noise, with a clear conscience.
Early voting is conducted at a gym, on Will Ross Court in Chamblee. WRC is the type of industrial side street you would never notice. By coincidence, PG used to go there. A company printed labels there. PG used to raid their dumpster, to get stickers for his pictures. Eventually, the label company got an enclosed dumpster, and PG had to go elsewhere.
A few years later, a duplex neighbor worked at the label company. Bob was a short guy, who always held a lit cigarette. Bob has a series of roommates, most of whom had been in prison. Bo, Bob’s bf, was one. One time I noticed that Bo was missing. Bob said that he was “out of town.”
Bob and Bo were always nice to PG. Eventually, they got evicted. The landlord said that they did not fight the eviction, but just said ok, and moved.
Dozens of yard signs marked the roads to the voting place. The label company building company now houses ZYCI. “CNC Machining with Urgency for the Aerospace, Defense, Robotic and Commercial Industries.” The building is painted bright colors.
The plan was to drop GP off at the front door, and go find a parking spot. There was an empty spot behind him. When you go early voting, and there are lots of empty parking spots, that is a good sign. There had been horror stories about the first day of early voting. PG questioned the wisdom of having much publicized early voting, without the capacity for election day. Perhaps the way early voting is conducted should be re-thought.
At 1:05, PG decided to record the time. He had been parked for about 10 minutes. At 1:06, GP walked up to the vehicle. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Why Did The 1956 Legislature Change The Flag?
What Stacey Abrams said about burning the Georgia flag in 1992 The New York Times decided to show a picture of a younger, slimmer Stacey Abrams burning the Georgia state flag. The year was 1992. The state flag had the Confederate battle flag embedded. People were asking the legislature to change that. Miss Abrams was a student activist. This is a repost.
The NYT article sparked a twitter dogpile, about the motives of the Georgia legislature in 1956. PG remembers 1993, when the initial proposal to change the flag was made. Changing The Flag is an account of those years. If you have a minute, you should read that post before going any further. The people who wanted to change the flag introduced an argument. They said that the legislature changed the flag, in 1956, as a protest against integration. PG never believed that. One afternoon in 1994, PG found a newspaper article that supported his point of view. After that, PG did not think much about the issue. The flag was changed in 2000 and 2003.
The issue has a few shades of gray. The reason given in 1956 was honoring the Confederacy. In 1993, the 1956 legislature was said to be protesting integration. The emotions of honoring the Confederacy, and denouncing integration, are not entirely separate. Many of the same people, who are proud of the Confederacy, are white supremacists. To an outsider, they can seem like the same thing. PG can understand how someone not familiar with Georgia could mistake the two.
The debate, over the motive of the 1956 legislature, was never necessary. The flag, featuring the Confederate battle flag, was seen as a symbol of racism. Many people were offended by this flag. Why not just say we should change the flag for this reason, and not worry what the legislature was thinking? However, this was not good enough. People needed some more ammunition for their fight. The notion that the flag was changed as a protest against desegregation was born. PG never heard, before 1993, that the flag was changed as a protest against integration. People believed this notion without any evidence, just because somebody said so. 1994 was 38 years after 1956. Very few people in 1994 were active in 1956. The argument in favor of the changed-to-protest-integration notion had two parts: (1) Because I said so, (2) if you disagree you are a racist idiot.
@KevinMKruse No, she burned the old *Georgia* flag, which had been designed specifically by white supremacists as a show of defiance to desegregation in 1956. Let’s dig in. @chamblee54 The Flag was not changed as a protest against desegregation. Changing The Flag @KevinMKruse I literally wrote a book on this, but congratulations on finding a blog post. @chamblee54 I wrote the blog post. If you read the post, you will see I did research. Did anyone say at the time that the new flag was a protest? Do you have a link to this?
@jdtitan Luther, would you say you’re a racist idiot, or more of a stupid racist? @whoopityscoot Hahahahahahah. I just read your blog post. Sir, you are a moron. @ashleystollar That’s like saying the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery. @Duranti “emotional pride for the traitors to America” @The_SquidProQuo You found one old newspaper article and felt compelled to argue the point huh? Stupid is a hell of a drug. @theDiff_Kenneth I read your blog post and I would like that 10 minutes of my life back. Your “evidence” was an announcement article that supported the flag change and omitted any overtly racist comments. Your writing style is close to unreadable and your investigative skills do not exist. @kingbuzz0 If you ever find yourself in the position of arguing of (insert subject) in the South had nothing to do with (insert stand in for outright racism), you have a bad argument. It’s all racism, always, every time.
@JoshCStephenso You found a single article? Maybe you would trust a paper written by the Deputy Director of the Georgia Senate Research Office – a chamber that is majority R? This tweet was helpful. The report was written in 2000, before the a new flag was driven through the legislature. If you have the time to read the complete report, it is worth your time. If not, a few quotes will be posted here, along with a few helpful comments.
The first Confederate flag looked a great deal like the Union flag. In early battles of the war, the two flags were often confused. “The commanding Confederate officer at the Battle of Bull Run, General P.T.G. Beauregard, determined that a single distinct battle flag was needed for the entire Confederate army. Confederate Congressman William Porcher Miles recommended a design incorporating St. Andrew’s Cross.”… “The St. Andrew’s Cross – the flag’s distinctive feature – had its origin in the flag of Scotland, which King James I of England combined with St. George’s Cross to form the Union Flag of Great Britain. It is believed that St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland since A.D. 750. and brother of the apostle Peter, was crucified by his persecutors upon a cross in the shape of an “X” in A.D. 60. White southerners, many of whom traced their ancestry to Scotland, very easily related to this Christian symbol.” “Other flags such as State regimental colors were used by the Confederacy on the battlefield, but the battle flag, although it was never officially recognized by the Confederate government, came to represent the Confederate army.”
At first, use of the battle flag was restricted to historic events. It wasn’t until the fifties that the flag began to be used by those who fought integration. In 1954, Brown vs. Board of Education was handed down by the Supreme Court, ordering the integration of schools. The Georgia legislature went into resistance mode, and spent a lot of time denouncing integration. The senate research office devotes page after page to these efforts. Finally, “In early 1955, John Sammons Bell, chairman of the State Democratic Party … suggested a new state flag for Georgia that would incorporate the Confederate Battle Flag. At the 1956 session of the General Assembly, state senators Jefferson Lee Davis and Willis Harden introduced Senate Bill 98 to change the state flag. Signed into law on February 13, 1956, the bill became effective the following July 1.”
“Little information exists as to why the flag was changed, there is no written record of what was said on the Senate and House floors or in committee and Georgia does not include a statement of legislative intent when a bill is introduced – SB 98 simply makes reference to the “Battle Flag of the Confederacy.” … “Many defenders of the flag, including former governor Ernest Vandiver, who served as the Lieutenant Governor in 1956, have attempted to refute the belief that the battle flag was added in defiance of the Supreme Court rulings. Vandiver, in a letter to the Atlanta Constitution, insisted that the discussion on the bill centered around the coming centennial of the Civil War and that the flag was meant to be a memorial to the bravery, fortitude and courage of the men who fought and died on the battlefield for the Confederacy.”
This is where it gets murky. It is apparent that the legislature was obsessed with integration. The circumstantial evidence, of the flag being changed as a protest of integration, is there. However, there is no smoking gun. There are no apparent statements, from 1956, saying that this change was made to protest integration. This detail seems to have sprung up in 1993, without having been widely mentioned in the 37 years since 1956. The newspaper article PG found does not mention a protest against integration, and does mention a desire to honor the Confederacy.
“The argument that the flag was changed in 1956 in preparation for the approaching Civil War centennial appears to be a retrospective or after-the-fact argument. In other words, no one in 1956, including the flag’s sponsors, claimed that the change was in anticipation of the coming anniversary. Those who subscribe to this argument have adopted it long after the flag had been changed.” This is contradicted by the newspaper article, and statements by “Governor Griffin’s floor leader, Representative Denmark Groover … “anything we in Georgia can do to preserve the memory of the Confederacy is a step forward.” As for the after-the-fact argument, you could say the same thing about the notion that the flag was changed as a protest against integration.
“There was also some opposition to the change from the state’s many newspapers. The North Georgia Tribune argued that: “….There is little wisdom in a state taking an official action which would incite its people to lose patriotism in the U.S.A. or cast a doubt on that part of the Pledge of Allegiance which says ‘one nation, unto God, indivisible…’ So far as we are concerned, the old flag is good enough. We dislike the spirit which hatched out the new flag, and we don’t believe Robert E. Lee…would like it either” “The Atlanta Constitution also thought that the flag change was unnecessary for the simple fact that “there has been no recorded dissatisfaction with the present flag.” The newspaper article PG found in 1994 was from the Constitution. Even though they were opposed to the change, they did not attribute this change to a desire to protest integration.
“When the flag change was first proposed, it received resistance from groups that one would think would have highly favored the change – various Confederate organizations including the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). “They made the change strictly against the wishes of UDC chapters from all the states that form our organization,” said Ms. Forrest E. Kibler, legislative chairwoman of the Georgia UDC. … The Executive Board of the Georgia Division of UDC had passed a resolution on January 11, 1956 opposing the proposed changes to the flag, citing that the Confederate battle flag belonged to all the Confederate States – not merely to Georgia – and placing it on the Georgia flag would cause strife. … Also opposing the new flag was the John B. Gordon Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. This group protested against all uses of the battle flag except in commemoration of the Confederacy, or by the official use of the Daughters of the Confederacy, the Sons of the Confederacy, and the Children of the Confederacy.” This opposition was touched on in the newspaper article. This is one of the more confusing aspects of this affair.
“While many questioned the political and philosophical motives of the flag change, there were others who considered the change to be an unnecessary expense that would burden taxpayers, since Georgia law required every public school, and all public institutions to fly the state flag. In voting “no,” Representative Mackay said that the present flag was “a symbol of sacred memory” and that “the change puts every flag owner in Georgia to unnecessary expense.” Alleviating the financial concerns of many, sponsors of the bill pointed out that those institutions required to fly the new flag will replace the old flag with the new one only as present flags wear out. Questions were also raised on whether anyone had a copyright on the flag design which would entitle them to royalties – a charge denied by John Sammons Bell and Representative Groover.”
John Sammons Bell is a name that keeps coming up. From 1954 to 1960, Mr. Bell was Chairman of the State’s Democratic Party. He was, by all accounts, an enthusiastic segregationist. One of the jaw dropping moments in the senate report was this: “Bell, a one-time supporter of Governor Ellis Arnall, once had the reputation of being a “liberal” on race issues.”
When the state senate report was issued, in 2000 (6 years after PG found the newspaper article, and dropped out of the argument,) Mr. Bell had a few comments. “He wanted to forever perpetuate the memory of the Confederate soldier who fought and died for his state and that the purpose of the change was “to honor our ancestors who fought and died and who have been so much maligned.” He has also argued that the flag was not redesigned in reaction to and in defiance of the 1954 Brown decision… “Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth … every bit of it is untrue. ”
“On March 9, 1993, (Denmark) Groover moved many Georgians when he stood in the House well to address his colleagues on the subject of the state flag. In an emotional speech, he acknowledged that the flag is offensive to some and conceded that, “I cannot say to you that I personally was in no way motivated by a desire to defy. I can say in all honesty that my willingness was in large part because … that flag symbolized a willingness of a people to sacrifice their all for their beliefs.” Mr. Groover offered a compromise, which included a smaller version of the battle flag. A flag similar to that was adopted in 2000, only to be changed again in 2003.
To sum up, the Georgia state flag was changed in 1956. The new flag contained the Confederate battle flag. Many people were offended by the 1956 flag. PG thought it was ugly. Many others saw it, with some justification, as a symbol of racism. For some reason, speculation about the motives of the 1956 legislature. 18 years after the passage of a new flag, people are still arguing over the motives of the 1956 legislature. Pictures for this gratuitous waste of bandwidth are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. .
Worst Tweets Ever
@theangiestanton US House candidate, GA-5 “Just think of all the people that will live now that Ruth Ginsburg has died and can’t vote for them to be aborted.” Some people are like a school during the covid lockdown … no class. With the fingernails still growing, the Republican candidate for GA 05 made a spectacle of herself. If the tweets are deleted, here are the screen shots.
Angela Stanton King is the definition of futile – a republican candidate in Atlanta, GA. Mitch McConnell, OTOH, is the Senate majority leader. His post mortem statement is little better.
“In the last midterm election before Justice Scalia’s death in 2016, Americans elected a Republican Senate majority because we pledged to check and balance the last days of a lame-duck president’s second term. We kept our promise. … By contrast, Americans reelected our majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 because we pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary. Once again, we will keep our promise. President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”
Some of the reactions to the King tweet are notable. Before getting to them, we have one more from the candidate: @theangiestanton “Black ppl love celebrating and worshiping the white liberal women that fought for their children to be aborted… #BYE (Waving hand emoji)”
@OutsideGrid “I totally agree. I might add that a massively disproportionate number of those murdered under her evil reign were black babies. Only a racist would support that type of democide.”
@2020FLnative “This is harsh but SO TRUE. She was of the old guard that supported abortion simply to get rid of people “we didn’t want”. Her words. Ick.”
@RealCandaceO “Spare us the fraudulent virtue and skip to the part where you start lining up fake sexual assault victims.” This tweet has been deleted.
@CollinsforGA Doug Collins US Senate candidate, GA-Special “RIP to the more than 30 million innocent babies that have been murdered during the decades that Ruth Bader Ginsburg defended pro-abortion laws. With @realDonaldTrump nominating a replacement that values human life, generations of unborn children have a chance to live.”
@Kermie64108506 “Did Ruth have mercy on the millions of babies she is responsible for having aborted?” Pictures are from “Special Collections and Archives Georgia State University Library”.
Chamblee54 
leave a comment