Judie Montoya FACEBOOK
“Did you know that it’s Confederate Heritage Month in Alabama? Eight states still have special Confederate holidays, but Alabama bolsters it’s Confederate Memorial Day (which popped up this Monday) with a month-long celebration of all that is slave-holding and treasonous.
This gave the Alabama Secretary of State, John Merrill another opportunity to play things Confederate sympathizers say.
Alabama’s Secretary of State John Merrill lamented recent calls to remove Confederate symbols from government buildings. “Are you going to take a bulldozer to the monument and forget what people fought for to preserve a way of life that makes us special and unique?…. young people need to “to be respectful of those historical traits we hold dear …(Those traits, he emphasized, are )“not related to race, divisiveness, or a heritage of fighting.” He personally has no racial biases, noting that he owns a signed photo of Alabama civil rights icon John Lewis, and touting the diversity in his agency. “We’ve got two African Americans that work in the lobby area of our office here,”
“Are you going to take a bulldozer to the monument and forget what people fought for to preserve a way of life that makes us special and unique?” …
Civil rights groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, slammed the remark as “shameful.” But in a follow-up conversation with ThinkProgress, Merrill explained that the “way of life” he celebrates is based on Confederate soldiers’ independent spirit, not their advocacy for slavery.
Special equals “Independent spirit.” So, it’s the treason he likes, not the slavery?
“When we have things happen in our state, we don’t rely on the federal government to come take care of us,” he said. “We take care of ourselves. For example, after the tornadoes in 2011, or after the massive flooding we had. That’s who we are. That’s who these people were. I’m proud of that.”
Even if you ignore the fact that Alabama founded it’s take-care-of-ourselves economy on the backs of thousands of unpaid slaves, there’s still that problem where Alabama is actually in the top ten states when it comes receiving aid from the federal government. Alabama ranks 49th then it comes to comparing overall givers and takers, and gets back about $3 for every dollar sent to the yankees feds. …