Eric Johnson, architech of heritage destruction



Commentary by Randy Phillips

For a number of years, Governors in Georgia and some other Southern States have
proclaimed April as Confederate History and Heritage Month at the request of Southern
Heritage groups, but it is a voluntary action, not a law.

Last Summer, the Georgia Heritage Council and a few others met and decided
we needed to enact Confederate Heritage and History Month into law. It is needed,
not only because everything Confederate is under attack by some small but well
connected interest groups, but also because the history of the period is being
banished from classrooms. The South’s history and war for independence
are a large part of our region’s cultural inheritance which every southerner
shares, and it needs to be understood, appreciated and publicly and officially
honored.

The aim of Confederate Heritage and History Month is to remember, educate and
promote our history and counteract misconceptions we see and hear almost daily
in the media. Economically, there is huge tourist potential for promoting this
history.

The bill has been introduced and cleared by committee in the Senate, but Senator
Eric Johnson, together with the black caucus, has announced plans to carjack
the promotion of Confederate History and Heritage Month. Eric Johnson has embraced
the agenda of the NAACP to virtually eradicate the Confederacy.

The NAACP and its allies have a number of tactics to indoctrinate the public,
but perhaps the most important one is to create the belief in the public mind
the War Between the States was fought to end slavery, despite all the evidence
to the contrary. These people know that if the public believes the war was fought
over slavery, then those who fought it and everything said and done to honor
them or their cause will be viewed as “bad.” Honoring the Confederacy–—even
the word Confederate—and those who fought for it will eradicated. If they
can just discredit the truth, the statues, flags, names on streets, parks, and
buildings, and holidays will go. Public expressions of our heritage will be
all but nonexistent, and privately frowned on if “it was about slavery”
is allowed to usurp the truth in reference to The War Between The States.

This campaign is the reason we now have “black history and slavery”
interpretations and museum displays at the national battlefields. It is why
in Columbus, Georgia the local Confederate Naval Museum was changed to The National
Civil War Naval Museum and a wing added on black history–—to promote
the theme. Hate speech masquerading as ‘art’ (taxpayer grant funded) has become
the norm.

And now, with Eric Johnson leading the pack, they are on the verge of pulling
off a huge similar tactical victory here in Georgia. Their plan is to add a
“slavery apology” to the Confederate Heritage and History Month
bill. If they succeed in this, it will be another success in the plan: It will
tie the Confederacy and slavery together in the “war to end slavery”,
and apologize.

Instead of the month being a chance to celebrate and take pride in our heritage
and educate the public about the facts of history, Confederate Heritage and
History Month will become a month long attack on the Confederacy for “fighting
for slavery” and southerners will be told we should be ashamed of the
South, our state’s history, and our ancestors.

If a slavery apology is made a part of the Confederate Heritage and History
Month legislation, it will be a much greater disaster in the long run to the
truth and our heritage than the theft of the 1956 flag. Instead of a month of
celebration and pride, it will become a month of “atonement” and
“shame.”

Better by far to have no legislation at all than the two in the same bill.

Copyright © 2003-2007, GeorgiaHeritageCouncil.org

On The Web:
http://georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/phillips-johnson-heritage-destruction031907.phtml