South Carolina Senator Advocates Confederate Holiday

In the "you've got to be kidding me" department, Democratic state Senator Robert Ford has proposed legislation in favor of creating a statewide "confederate memorial day" that would be a paid holiday for state and county workers. I don't quite get forcing tax payers to fund a holiday that honors those who tenaciously fought to maintain slavery. Senator Ford hopes that his holiday will help educate black and white South Carolinians about their shared history (gosh, remember when my great granpappy owned your great granpappy, sold off all your great uncles and raped your great aunts--those were good times, weren't they?)and accelerate the healing process between the races. In this he is at best naive; at worst: an idiot.

I'm all for holidays, but I submit that there is more than enough room on regular memorial day to celebrate the memory of the confederate war dead (cough, racist scum, cough). Imagine if German-Americans advocated for a holiday that remembered the noble efforts of the Nazis! They wouldn't, but just imagine. Or, we could have a Native American Extermination Day--maybe we could make that a 4-day weekend because, heck, we had to kill a lot of Indians to get this country ready for sub-divisions and strip malls.

I read Gone With The Wind. I get it. I understand that some southerners still regard the civil war as a economic conflict by a north that was jealous of the fiscal efficiencies of slave-based economy. Thus: "The Great War of Northern Aggression." I even understand the perspective, however misguided, that when they romanticize the old south they are recalling a way of life--cotillions and mint juleps, noble gentlemen and porch swings and hazy, humid summer nights--not the systematic oppression, exploitation, and dehumanization of an entire race. I also understand these views are bullshit. All the glories of the beautiful old south were fed on misery, built from the bones of generations of slaves and nourished with the blood of the same It was not a fantasyland of plantation princesses and lordly gentry, but a fetid and corrupt society for which all who benefited, however indirectly, are ultimately culpable. Honoring those who actively perpetuated these crimes is, at best, sinful.

Senator Ford should know better.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29003595/?gt1=43001

Listening To: Husker Du, New Day Rising