The Centennial
I didn’t save my Confederate money because it never occurred to me that the South Would Rise Again.
In my defense, I was just a kid when I lucked into a stash of Johnny Reb cash.
What still sticks with me now – all these decades later – is that my faux rebel dollars stank of the vinegar they treated the paper with to make it look really, really old.
Confederate cash was easy to come by at the time because, when my family pulled up stakes in Pennsylvania and relocated to Florida, the we were all preparing to kick off a four-year Civil War Centennial commemoration (1961-65.)
Those were interesting times in the true Chinese proverbial sense.
We were all supposed to fear and hate the Red Menace. There was a civil rights movement gaining steam. And Vietnam was just beginning to emerge as something more than a blip on anybody’s radar screen.
Oh, and some dodo thought a four year commemoration of a war that claimed more American lives than any other conflict in history would be good for the nation’s, um, soul.
You know, a time for reconciliation. To put aside old resentments and rededicate ourselves to national unity.
Plus, I got Confederate money reeking of salad oil, so that was Jake.
As a newly transplanted Yankee to a strange land I was more or less oblivious to the nuances of the South’s embrace of the Civil War Centennial.
Which more or less distilled into: Reconciliation Hell! Save your Confederate money Boys!
No, in the South it was a time to build statues of – and name schools after – Confederate heroes.
A time to dredge up that old Lost Cause mythology. To double down on Jim Crow’s idea of democracy Southern style, and vow to maintain segregation now and forever.
Oh yes, and to argue forcefully and often that that the whole unpleasant conflict was about “states rights,” and that slavery hardly figured into it.
Hell, UF frat boys were dressing up as Reb officers and escorting their dates – preening in their best Scarlet O’Hara gowns – to Confederate balls.
The Bicentennial
Fast forward more than a decade later.
We were less fearful of the specter of World Communism. Civil Rights was gaining traction. And Vietnam was still ripping American unity to shreds.
I’d just signed on to be higher education reporter for the Gainesville Sun.
But because the year was 1976, we newsroom types were also all hands on deck, churning out Bicentennial copy to help GNV celebrate One Hundred Years of American Independence.
Even as a self-confessed jaded newspaper man I was happy – nay, proud – to participate in the grand Bicentennial celebration. And, yes, the 4th of July that year was a splendid affair indeed.
Like John Adams I still believed that Independence Day “ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
Which is to say that I was young and idealistic.
The semiquincentennial
Half a century later and here we are ready to celebrate yet another milestone.
America’s 250 year birthday? Nah.
Listen, there’s scant little to toast over what we’ve collectively done to the spirit of American Independence these past several years.
No, for all practical purposes we’re gonna celebrate the Confederate victory over The United States Of America.
They won boys. And I didn’t save my Confederate money.
Signs of surrender are everywhere.
We voters cheerfully elected – twice! – a racist, authoritarian goon who has ever since been driving stakes through the very heart of American freedoms. And who intends the semiquincentennial to be all about him.
We have a Supreme Court that has decreed America to officially be a color blind nation – despite the ugly evidence all around us to the contrary.
And a lot of states that, following the Supremes’ lead, are gleefully leading the charge to make elected officials of color an extinct species.
And a ruling party that is doing everything it can to discourage voting because it fully intends to remain the ruling party until the next semiquincentennial (or until the End Times, whichever comes first).
Not to mention a generation of politicians who don’t know the difference between public policy and a pizza parlor.
Cynical pols who clawed their way to power – and intend to stay there – by urging Americans to hate other Americans who don’t look like them, think like them or live like them.
And we’re supposed to celebrate all of this? I think not.
In that context, erecting a Mad Max style fighting cage on the lawn of the White House is the perfect symbolism with which to commemorate the throttling of American Independence.
That cage is a monument to cruelty. To might over right. To the devolution of American values to their most common common denominator.
Don’t expect me to celebrate that. It is simply a debasement too far.
Plus, I didn’t even save my stinkin’ Confederate cash.
Quote of the day: “We’re building something in front of the White House that’s quite attractive to a lot of people. It’s going to have the big UFC fight on June 14. And I’m looking at it, and maybe we’ll never, ever take it down.” Donald Trump
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