June 05, 2009

Okay, I'll tell you

Originally published November 9, 2003

I received this email from Chris:

Hi,

I grew up in NY, though now live in eastern PA. Consequently, I have no
idea as to why people still carry confederate flags. As I understand it, people in the south tend to be very patriotic and fond of our United States, so I presume that it's not from any separatist impulse.

If you had a minute to explain this cultural phenomenon, I would be very grateful.

Thanks,
-Chris

I've listened to Jesse Jackson and other race-baiting assholes call the Confederate flag a symbol of racism. I've also seen hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan waving that flag as they behave as race-baiting assholes. I see very little difference between the two, and they BOTH defile that flag.

I took the scenic route back from north Georgia last weekend and as I drove through small Southern towns along the way, I noticed something. Almost every one has a monument to fallen Confederate soldiers. The South bled hard in that war. Then, when the South lost, the carpetbaggers came to rub salt in the wounds during Reconstruction.

I live in the only part of the United States that EVER was conquered and occupied by an invading army. That crap may have happened over 150 years ago, but memories live long in the South. We still sit on the front porch, drink sweet tea and talk about great-grandpa and great-great grandma and smile at the memories.

We remember. Most of the Southern men who died in that war were not rich, they didn't own slaves and they followed Lee, Jackson and Longstreet out of loyalty to the South. They were sons and grandsons of men who fought the British in the Revolutionary War. They believed in THEIR RIGHTS and didn't want a strong federal government telling them how to behave. They were willing to fight and die for those beliefs.

That flag is not a symbol of racism. Only a fuckhead such as Jesse Jackson or some sheet-wearing loon from the KKK sees it as such, and both have a vested interest in doing so. They use the flag to further a political agenda. They both make me want to puke.

That flag is a symbol of DEFIANCE. That flag is the symbol of a REBEL, someone who will NOT be a docile member of the herd no matter what price he has to pay. Goddam, but we have too many docile members of the herd in this country today. I refuse to be one. THAT'S why I have that Confederate flag on my truck.

Southern men have represented themselves in our armed forces far out of porportion to the national population ever since that war. Southern boys grow up running the woods and handling guns from an early age. They hit what they aim at, they can build a fire and they know what a long walk in oppressive heat is like. They make damn good soldiers.

And deep in every Southern breast burn memories that can NEVER be erased. We talk a language all our own, we eat food that nobody else does and we HAVE OUR PRIDE. Southern white males are the last minority in the country that "polittically correct" people can insult with impunity and we've had that shit heaped on our heads for a long time.

So, we REBEL. We DEFY.

And we fly the Confederate flag.

If that pisses you off, kiss my Cracker ass. We do that TO PISS OFF people such as you.