Maureen Dowd wrote in a classic genre this week, the genre of New York Times pieces looking down on Georgia (which is itself a subset of the larger genre of New Yorkers looking down on the South). I'm not going to link to it, because who cares what New Yorkers think about how Georgians ought to live? If they don't like Georgia, they can stay right up there in the cold. As the late Lewis Grizzard said of similar complaints in a famous column thirty years ago, "I live in one of the most progressive cities in the world. We built a subway to make Yankees feel at home."
It really is a venerable genre of American letters, though. I once read a piece from its early decades, if I recall correctly, criticizing the South for holding a tournament in the style of Ivanhoe. Harpers in the era said Ivanhoe was responsible for the Civil War. Mark Twain himself partly agreed with the charge, naming Sir Walter Scott 'at least partly responsible.'
There is some irony, though, in reading Dowd's lament for the Georgia that elected Jimmy Carter in favor of the one that exists today. The Georgia of those days was tightly divided between Democrats and other Democrats. The election of 1968 saw some Democrats (including Carter's successor as governor) voting for Republicans in order to vote against Democrat Lester Maddox, the noted segregationist who drove black men from the doors of his business with an axe handle. That Georgia had the Confederate battle flag on its state flag. The Georgia of today does not, and is apparently tightly divided between Democrats of Dowd's own sort and the Republicans she despises -- who, whatever else may be said of them, were never segregationists and never posed with the Confederate flag.
Many good things were true of that Georgia too; it was the one into which I was born, and where I grew up and lived many years. There are lots of things about it I miss. Yet the last person who should complain about the changes is a writer from the New York Times.
6 comments:
Georgia is likely a purely symbolic name to them, not something they can picture very clearly in their minds, not having been there. They may have changed planes there, perhaps even numerous times. Some may have driven through it on the way to Miami, but I'm thinking Dowd may not even have done that.
"Maureen, tell me ten facts about Georgia."
Grim, the Georgia flag of today is a version of the first Confederate flag and more than a few Republicans supported it's adoption. By pointing that out I'm not criticizing Georgia. As a proud son of the South I most certainly do not support attempts to erase Confederate images from our public square. I mention this to keep the record straight.
I'm well aware of that, Joel. It was a remarkable maneuver, which they get away with because of the complete ignorance of their opponents to which AVI refers. One of the many facts they don't know is what the Confederate National Flag looked like, at least in its first incarnation.
But as similar as they are, which is almost completely so, they are 'differenced' in the language of heraldry, and thus not the same. The inclusion of the state seal is a significant difference. In heraldry the inclusion of such a difference would suffice to have one knight using a coat of arms that was otherwise the same as another (usually someone like his uncle to whom he felt like paying a kind of homage). That's the kind of thing they're doing here.
The whole flag debate -- which happened mostly from 30 years ago until the first decade of this century -- was conducted in a basically dishonest manner by the politicians. The honorable exception to that was Zell Miller, who had been a segregationist in his youth but who as governor had changed his heart and tried to change the flag as well. He lost, but he was at least honest about what he wanted to do and why. None of the others were.
Finally, you’re writing something that I can agree with
Greg
If leftists were not busy messing around in other peoples business, what would they do all day?
Raven, I have no idea. Probably explode from an overpressure of pent-up busy-body would be my suspicion. Some folks have so few things to worry with that they insist on worrying with other folks.
Or they are so blinded by the log in their own eyes that they feel compelled to save the neighbors from any risk of encountering a speck. (Mrs. Jellyby was one of the early literary examples of the first type.)
LittleRed1
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