New Georgia Specialty License Plate Features A Confederate Flag

[DonViejo]

Source: TPM

CAITLIN MACNEAL – FEBRUARY 19, 2014, 11:03 AM EST

Georgia has again approved a specialty license plate that feature the Confederate flag and honor "Sons of Confederate Veterans," according to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution..

The new plates upset civil rights activists in the state and even surprised Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R). "I hadn't heard that so I don’t know anything about it. I’ll have to talk to them about it. I had no information in advance about it," he told the Journal-Constitution.

The Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans designed the plates, which were then approved by the state's Department of Motor Vehicles. The group's spokesman, Ray McBerry, said that the they didn't mean to offend anyone and that the state shouldn't discriminate against people looking to honor their heritage.

"By sanctioning the plate, they are not saying they agree with our organization. They're just saying it's a level playing field," he told the Journal-Consitution.

###

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/georgia-confederate-license-plate

[Aristus]

1. Typical: "Please don't discriminate against us for being racist assholes!"

Damn. I'm so glad I live up North, where at least flying the slavery flag is, by definition, support for racism and bigotry. It can't be shrugged off as 'heritage'...

[xocet]

14. Maryland has one too...

and Alabama...



and South Carolina...



and North Carolina...



and Mississippi...



and Louisiana...



and Tennessee...



Here is their heritage:

Mapping Slavery
October 31, 2012 by Erin Allen

According to the 1860 census, the population of the United States that year was 31,429,891. Of that number, 3,952, 838 were reported as enslaved. The 1860 census was the last time the federal government took a count of the Southern slave population. In 1861, the United States Coast Survey issued two maps of slavery based on the census data: the first mapped Virginia and the second mapped Southern states as a whole.

The landmark map of the Southern states provided a graphic breakdown of those census returns, specifically focusing on slave population per county as a percentage of the total population in the southern portion of the nation. Using statistical cartography, low percentages were shown in light grey while higher percentages were illustrated using more intense shading. This provided a dramatic representation of slavery across the region. The counties along the Mississippi River and in coastal South Carolina show the highest percentage of slaves, while Kentucky and the Appalachians show the lowest.

...

http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2012/10/mapping-slavery/

[KamaAina]

20. Oh, barf.

Bawlmer native here.

[xocet]

24. Sadly, there are quite a few of them out there. I did not complete an exhaustive search. n/t

[KamaAina]

25. In one Civil War battle, the 1st Maryland Regiment, U.S.A.

fought the 1st Maryland Regiment, C.S.A.

[onehandle]

2. How about the sons of the Klu Klux Klan or the Third Reich or the Khmer Rouge?

Let's really level the field.

[Hoyt]

3. Bigoted, ignorant legislators get elected by bigoted, ignorant citizens. Disgusting.

[lunasun]

36. +1

[shenmue]

4. Can you get one with a Union banner?

Union fighters were Americans too.

The war tore apart families and there were many who had fighters on both sides. I wish someone would remember that.

And be sorry for all the dead.

[Nika]

5. Like I care about the hateful heritage of the KKK oriented billybob set.

A heritage of enslavement and racial bigotry, who needs to honor that?

[KeepItReal]

6. If I still lived in GA, I'd request a "Friends of General Sherman" plate

With that damned Rebel flag burning on it.

[stage left]

64. That would really be something to see.

If probably dangerous. The kind of people who generally sport the rebel flag on their vehicles don't have much sense of humor. Or much of any other kind of sense. Going by the family history I've uncovered, I could probably join the Daughters of the Confederacy four times over, but why would I want to do that? My ancestors were upcountry farmers and the civil war ruined them, one and all. I've found out that Greenville County fought against Secession to begin with--thought that leaving the Union wouldn't do them any good and they were right. Now the Daughters of the American Revolution. That's another story. Still looking for the ancestor who fought in that one. . Of course when I find him, I'll probably find out that he was fighting on the wrong side. Greenville County was also a hot bed of Tory activity.

[Botany]

7. Can you get a license plate that commemorates Gen. Sherman's march through Georgia?

[Politicub]

16. +1

Balance and all that.

[JustAnotherGen]

26. I'd love

One of those! Burn Georgia Burn (that old Alabama music group song) could be the tag line.

[awoke_in_2003]

35. Haha...

That would rile the idiots up. Maybe a personalized plate- SMTTS (Sherman's march to the sea)

[Arugula Latte]

62. Or maybe ... The Surrender of the Perfidious Treasonous States at Appomattox?

[Botany]

63. The south fought for the right to keep human beings as slaves and to

break up the United States of America ..... end of story. And please
don't give me any, "that is our heritage" crap. But on the bright side
sooner or later the rule of the dumb ass white racist bible thumping
"global warming is only a theory" is gonna come to an end.


Demographics can be one mean bastard.



So can African Americans sport a license plate showing this?

[Arugula Latte]

65. I'm not sure why you reacted to my post like that -- I'm on your side.

I really do think that they were treasonous. Fuck people who say "the Civil War was about economics, not slavery." Yeah -- it was about the economics of slavery. Paying people zero wages while keeping them in tortured bondage had its economic advantages for the owners -- big surprise there. I think this flag plate is sickening and the Confederate flag is the Flag of Losers, in every sense of the word.

[Botany]

66. I agree w/ you 100%

What was really crazy was that the rich slave owners got the
poor and working class who did not own slaves to fight for
their right to keep slaves.

Mississippi State Flag



sorry for any misunderstanding

[Arugula Latte]

67. That's the model of the modern-day Republican party.

Get people to work and vote against their own interests to prop up the plantation owners/1 %.

[Botany]

68. Yup!

See West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee .... lots of poor rural
people who vote against their own best interests time after time.

But as I noted above sooner or later demographics will catch up
with the republicans and there is nothing they can do about that
even in the south.

[Vox Moi]

8. Interesting subject. I have a question or two.

First, this is not the flag of the Confederate States.
It is the battle flag of the Confederate Army.
-------------------
Consider:
The United States Army fought an illegal and unnecessary war in Iraq and while most of us repudiate that war, we lionize the soldiers as heroes. We tend to separate the courage and valor and sacrifice of our soldiers from the morality of the war they were fighting. Is it a slap in the face to Iraqis to do so?

The Confederate Army fought on the wrong side of history and human rights yet the courage and valor and sacrifice made by those soldiers has been long remembered.

If the Confederate battle flag is a slap in the face then is not every monument to Confederate soldiers at Gettysburg a slap as well?

Just asking.

[Kingofalldems]

9. It's the flag of traitors.

[Steerpike]

10. On one level I do see your point.

Respect for our loved ones and family members is an important component here.

I hope you understand that the confederacy stands for unforgettable atrocities to those people held as slaves and their loved ones and families.

Most non-southerners cannot seperate those compnents from one another.

[Bandit]

12. Yes

There is no call to celibrate/honor any Traitor no matter how well they fought against their country; and there is certainly no call to EVER raise the Flag of Southern Treason..EVER.

[Vox Moi]

28. Three variations on 'Treason'

Thousands of German nationals joined the British Army in WWII.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8635541.stm

I don't believe that treason and succession are necessarily the same thing.

The Confederate States did not want to conquer the USA or overthrow the government. They wanted to leave.

On the other hand, American colonials (british subjects) invaded Canada in 1775 in an attempt to force those colonies into a state of rebellion, nearly a year before Independence was declared.

Just saying that it's not so crystal clear to me.

[Bandit]

31. Treason does not require overthrowing the Government

When you take up arms against your country you are guilty of Treason. Our forefathers were guilty of Treasobn as well but they won their war and since they formed a new country they don't go down in American history as Treasonous, however the South did not win and American history has them placed as Traitors and guilty of Treason. the Flag they fly is a symbol of Southern Treason and that can not be erased..

[billh58]

32. Slavery and subjugation of

a race of people is "not so crystal clear to you?" The slave holders wanted to secede because they wanted to protect their "right" to own other human beings.

The Confederate assholes got their asses kicked, and rightfully so, and even then it took another hundred years until the former slaves were given something close to "equal rights" with their former owners. In many places in the former Confederacy, the slave-holder mindset still denies African Americans equal rights and dignity.

[Vox Moi]

43. That question was about treason, not slavery

But I do have something to say about 'Assholes'
While the issue of slavery is 'crystal clear' to us today, it was not so settled in those days.
We can scoff at racist notions like 'White Man's Burden" but that way of thinking had considerable weight among intelligent people and not just in the Confederacy: it was popular in England, which had already abolished slavery (but not subjugation).
You may dismiss Confederates as assholes if you wish, but that implies there is nothing to learn from their history. It's like calling Nazis evil. I'm not going to argue for the virtue of slaveholders or Nazis but I will argue that we dismiss them as assholes at our own peril.

[billh58]

45. Thank you very much

for your infinite wisdom, but those who would attempt to rationalize slave-holders and bigots are indeed assholes.

[geek tragedy]

59. Your moral ambiguity on slavery is sooo sophisticated! nt

[Vox Moi]

60. Trying to understand how ordinary people come to defend evil is not supporting their cause.

[JustAnotherGen]

27. They formed their own country

President, laws, bylaws, currency, etc. etc. I don't see any difference between them and say - Japan.

Then again - yesterday I posted about my formative years being spent in West Germany - and how kind - very kind the elderly Germans were to this bi-racial little girl - yet one of my first memories in the states is an elderly white American woman being cruel to a child based upon the color of her skin.

Funny how Americans are asked to 'honor' some for their valor yet not others.

[NYC Liberal]

30. Most of doing that wouldn't support flying American flags all over Iraq and putting up

monuments to our soldiers in their country and naming their buildings and roads after our soldiers. That's the difference.

[jeff47]

33. History didn't end in 1865

After the war, the Confederate Army battle flag became the symbol used by racists, secessionists and supremacists.

It does not mean the same thing it meant in 1865.

[Vox Moi]

44. Very Good point.

Would you see that at the difference between the flag and a monument to Confederate Soldiers?

The swastika is a very old symbol from many cultures and the Nazis ruined it forever.

[Le Taz Hot]

34. The South sacrificed their own soldiers

by declaring war on the United States. Those soldiers CHOSE to fight on the side of pro-slavery. They were on the wrong side of history, of equality, of Democracy -- let them forever be remembered in their place of shame as they so rightly deserve.

[Hoyt]

39. Everyone knows what that flag means nowadays, some just like to fly their hatred/racism.

[12ZTR]

11. This is great!

They want to advertise that they are losers & that a Republican President kicked their ass.

[dipsydoodle]

13. California has got a good one

[kwassa]

54. So does Virginia!

[dipsydoodle]

55. lol

[Politicub]

15. My husband and I need to get the fuck out of this crazy state

Atlanta is an oasis, but it's subject to redneck laws passed by people who hate cities and progress.

[RebelOne]

22. Despite all the racism and crazy laws,

I love Georgia. I live northwest of Atlanta in Woodstock and even though it is a red county, the area is wonderful. Georgia is a hell of a lot better than Miami, Florida, where I lived most of my life.

[Paulie]

58. Union county?

[DontTreadOnMe]

17. Let's Make Sherman's March a National Holiday!

We can re-enact it every year... you know.. Heritage kinda thing.

[freshwest]

52. LOL! That would be a hoot. USA! USA! USA!

And I'm speaking as someone who grew up in a state which had an official holiday for Jefferson *fucking* Davis!

The people flying that flag or with it on their truck windows were not descendants of Confederate soldiers. They were supporters of the KKK.

People shouldn't fall for the deception of what this means.

Confederate philosophy, read the dreck (emboldening font mine) and weep:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=263631

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022945517#post9

Jefferson Davis said after the Emancipation Proclamation that in every free state they marched into, they would kidnap all free blacks and return them and keep all of their descendants to slavery FOREVER.

What kind of person would condemn an unborn child to a life of slavery? The 'life is so sacred we have to get rid of birth control group'?

BTW, I don't want anyone to take my words for that. So here are Jefferson Davis' own words:

"...Now, therefore, as a compensatory measure, I do hereby issue the following Address to the People of the Non-Slaveholding States:

"On and after February 22, 1863, all free negroes within the limits of the Southern Confederacy shall be placed on the slave status, and be deemed to be chattels, they and their issue forever. (RE - ENSLAVE ALL BLACKS EVER FREED)

"All negroes who shall be taken in any of the States in which slavery does not now exist, in the progress of our arms, shall be adjudged, immediately after such capture, to occupy the slave status, and in all States which shall be vanquished by our arms, all free negroes shall, ipsofacto, be reduced to the condition of helotism, so that the respective normal conditions of the white and black races may be ultimately placed on a permanent basis, so as to prevent the public peace from being thereafter endangered...


http://davisspeech.blogspot.com/

[IggleDoer]

18. So, if I'm from the North and Billy-Bob's F-150 has a Confederate Flag on his license plate ...

... should I feel threatened? Can I stand my ground and pull out my phallic substitute and fire it at him?

[KamaAina]

19. Sons of Confederate Veterans?

Wouldn't they be, like, 130 years old? Should they really be driving?

[mike dub]

21. Good post, DonViejo- and/but most Southern states already offer these plates

My state (North Carolina) has had these for years. Most of the Southern states do, but, as noted above, the "border state" of Maryland offers them too. I read somewhere that Maryland made Confederate flag license plates available years ago, while Kentucky and Texas were still hedging on whether they would offer them. Sort of interesting, as I think of Kentucky (and Texas) as having a much greater alignment with the old South (although Kentucky is also a "border state" and never seceded from the Union).

[billh58]

23. Defending racism and bigotry

to the last Johnny Reb. From the home page of one of their chapters:

"To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we will commit the vindication of the cause for which we fought. To your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier's good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles which he loved and which you love also, and those ideals which made him glorious and which you also cherish."

http://scscv.com/

Now that's an ideal to be upheld by white supremacists everywhere: "vindication of the cause for which we fought," as in slavery was a great and noble institution, and y'all Northerners fucked it up for us.

[Mike Daniels]

29. If a bunch of Hispanics/Latinos wanted the Mexican Flag offered on Texas, Arizona, New Mexico plates

You'd have the entire GOP up in arms.

However, wouldn't the Mexican Flag on a southwestern state license plate be pretty much the same argument these clowns in Georgia are making? That it's about their heritage?

[Le Taz Hot]

37. At least the Mexican flag represents a country.

But I do understand your point.

[awoke_in_2003]

38. Good point. nt

[Hoyt]

40. It's their heritage to hate, that's all.

[Paladin]

50. Very apt comparison. (nt)

[albino65]

42. Maybe they should use this flag on their license plates

[Tom Ripley]

56. +1000

[Vox Moi]

46. A reminder of Traitors who fought to maintain a Slave Empire … on a license plate

[link:|

[happyslug]

47. Bring up the "Factoid" that Mexico abolished Slavery in 1821??

The only problem we know Slavery existed in Mexico long after 1821. For example when Brigadier General Kit Carson went through the Navaho nation during the US Civil War, he recommended to his superiors to sell the Navajos into slavery in Mexico. His Superior vetoed the idea for this was after the -Emancipation Proclamation and slavery wad no longer an option for US Troops when it came to hostile Native Americans. I bring this up for slavery, well illegal, was still thriving in Mexico as late as the 1860s.

Now, most of such slavery was peonage, people working off debts they owned to others. The problem was it was impossible to pay off such debts for such peons had to borrow more money to pay for the food and shelter provided to them by their creditors/masters.

In fact during and after the US Civil War, the US NEVER passed a law making it illegal to keep slaves. Given the clear message of the 13th amendment no slaves could be kept, as that term was used in the US prior to 1865,

Peonage, after also called "Debt Slavery" on the other hand, had to be directly addressed. The 13th amendment clearly outlawed peonage along with slavery but it required a Federal Law to actual end peonage (And in much of the US South, peonage became the norm after 1877 and the withdraw of Federal Forces form the South). Peonage was replaced as a way to keep people as slaves in all but name till replaced by the concept of Convict labor after about 1900.

As to Mexico, Peonage was practiced till the Revolution of the 1910s (and some evidence till the 1930s).

http://chican-izmo.blogspot.com/2012/04/peonage-mexicos-legacy-of-shame.html

http://www.bicentenario.gob.mx/bdb/bdbpdf/barbarousMexico/BARBAROUS%20MEXICO-07.pdf

We Americans could look down on Mexico for tolerating Peonage for so long, but my Mother remember a person of her youth who, when it came to payday received only a statement of what his pay should have been if it all did not go to pay off his debt at the company store (And this in a State where such deductions had been illegal since at least the 1880s if not earlier). HE was a debt slave, working pay to pay to pay off his debts. Through he did have the legal option to quit his work (Through employers would not tell him so and would threaten him with arrest if he should quit without paying the debt in full), unlike the Peons of Mexico who could not till the debt was paid in full.

[happyslug]

48. Duplicate by mistake

n/t

[Brigid]

49. Chuck Thompson was right.

That is all.

[get the red out]

51. Sons of Confederate Veterans

The Sons of Confederate Veterans are all dead, considering how long ago their fathers fought on the wrong side of that war. This is complete BS to cover what that license plate really means to people.

I had ancestors that fought on both sides of that long ago war, for my family it is an interesting footnote and not something that figures into our lives, the "spay and neuter" license plate is what actually represents something in the daily life of my sister and I, since we are both into our pets. There is only one reason someone would sport a confederate flag.

[Wolf Frankula]

53. General Sherman Says

|

Joeja, you don't want this.

Wolf

[HoosierCowboy]

57. How proud would they be...

...if the DMV put a burning cross surrounded by lynchings of blacks on the license plates? Oh, lets just forget about the truth!

[tabasco]

61. Bring it on, losers

We'll kick your sorry asses again.

Signed,

The U.S. Army and Navy