« Busy as a 1-legged man at a butt-kickin' contest! | Main | Mmmmmmm...Bop! »

April 20, 2005

Alabama: where nothin' says lovin' like marryin' yer cousin!

Google search: giant confederate battle flag prattville alabama

Results include lots of historical research references, a couple news items about the Montgomery City Council debating the flag display, etc. But nothing about the story I'm looking for.

Within the last month, our local NBC station ran a bit about Prattville, 8 mi. north, the still-hot White Flight Destination Suburb of choice. Apparently someone has put up one humongous flagpole with a giant Confederate battle flag, and it's highly visible from the interstate. Problem is, it's on private property, and no one's letting out details as to whose it is. Anyway, WSFA actually asked anyone with information about it to contact the station.

This just in: journalism, like Gen. Francisco Franco, is still dead.

Since then, not a peep, not one rebel yell, nothing is what I have heard about it. If it were in a Blue State (and the Terri Schiavo-Old Pope Death Watch-New Pope Smoke Watch marathon hadn't been going on, and on), you might've heard about it. But this is Alabama, after all. And so is this.

And this. College days flashback: Tuscaloosa, 1983-1987. On one of my 1st visits to my future school, I saw a billboard near town with "KKK GAS JEWS" spray-painted on it. I'd never actually seen such a thing.

In front of the bowling alley a van would park for 3 days, maybe a week or so. They'd spread a display of flags, all different states, nations, football-related, etc. And within a week of the van closing shop, someone would put a Nazi flag on the Hillel house, or B'nai B'rith, or one of the mostly-Jewish Greek houses. It would always make the local news. But no arrests were ever reported.

So, the week of the 10-year anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, domestic terror, hatred, intimidation, racism, check -- alive and kicking. And Time magazine gives us -- Ann Coulter. As Dave Neiwert says today, how did we get here?

Posted by Jeff at April 20, 2005 07:27 AM