PhotoDude.com

Mon. May 05, 2003

Run Up The White One

Run Up The White One – Changing the state flag has become a semi-annual pastime here in Georgia: “’The old flag was changed; now this flag was changed. How do you know, six months from now, they won’t change it again?’ [Rick] Bridges asked. ’We live in a country where we really ain’t got nothing to fuss about. But people are still coming up with stuff to fuss over.’”

Indeed. You can read my previous rant about this, but here’s a brief summary for those who paused to sneeze, and then looked up to see a new flag. In 1956, the State Legislature added the Confederate Battle flag to the State Flag. A significant percentage of Georgians hated it. In 2000, former Governor Roy Barnes got a flag change bill to pass the Legislature. I called this new flag the Frankenstein Flag, as it kept a little bit of everything, and simply shrank the Confederate Battle Emblem to a size so small I guess they hoped it wouldn’t be visible on top of a flagpole. A significant percentage of Georgians hated it.

Roy is a former Governor largely because our current Governor, Sonny Perdue, ran in 2002 on the promise that he would let the people vote in a referendum on the flag issue. However, no one bothered to look into that enough to figure out … it was unconstitutional. Passing new laws and bills is a role the State Constitution reserves solely for the Legislature. Doh!

So after much hemming, hawing, and threats of various boycotts, Perdue and the two Houses of the Legislature agreed to a compromise: another new flag, and the people will get to choose between it and the Barnes Frankenstein Flag of 2000. The Confederate Battle Flag will not be an option in the voting, and Governor Perdue will just have to go back to his supporters at reelection time and say, “look, I’m not the first politician who didn’t deliver a campaign promise that got him elected.”

Amazingly to me, the majority of people of both sides seem to be fine with this compromise. I find it amazing for two reasons, [1] as far as Confederate emblems go, in my opinion, we’ve moved out of the frying pan into the fire itself, and [2] this flag faces a nearly certain legal challenge because of one addition, meaning it will likely be changed again.

The offensive symbol previously on the flag was offensive not only because of its historical roots, but because it had also been appropriated by the KKK, skinheads, and various hate mongers over the past 135 years (not to mention some really bad Southern Rock bands). Historically, it had its origins as the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, but people have erroneously come to know it as “The Confederate Flag.”

To be historically accurate, in this popup image the flag on the right is the Confederate National Flag. The Confederate Flag. The one on the left is … the new Georgia State Flag. Note the dead on similarities, with the only differences being a slightly different shade of blue, and the addition of the State Seal and one sentence of text. The circle of stars represents each of the Confederate States.

So, we’ve “upgraded” from the symbol of a Confederate Army to the symbol of the Nation that Espoused Slavery. And, somehow, everyone seems OK with that, like it’s a massive improvement. I am historically stunned and amazed, but like most everyone else in Georgia, I’d like to see this issue finally buried with a wooden stake in its heart, so that we can move on to far more important issues.

But that probably won’t happen. Because they also added one sentence of text to the new State Flag, since flags are such a great medium for reading. The words? “In God We Trust.” One of the brethren of the man who sued over the Pledge of Allegiance surely lives in Georgia, and is just as surely rounding up a lawyer willing to make the challenge on the basis of separation of church and state. Once the State has paid for 25,000 of the new flags and put them in place, of course.

At that point, I’ve got the next flag design covered. Run up the white one.