Whose Glory

10/4/11 comments on Yahoo News article on Gov. Perry and Confederate symbols
A sincere southern gentleman once said to me, "the south will rise again." I must admit I'm not entirely sure what he meant and I haven't spent too much time thinking about the Civil War era. The more I hear about the Southern Confederacy the more I'd like to assume it's a purely academic study of history, but I'm afraid there's more beneath the surface. I've driven along the western hills of Virginia and seen pleasant neighborhoods with modest homes along the way flying Confederate flags. It seems a little weird to me. I can understand a historical plaque or a history textbook, but flying a newly woven cloth in the Confederate colors seems like a current affirmation of something and just like flying Old Glory I think of it as a symbol of allegiance. I grew up pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America..., and that's it; just the one flag and one nation under God. I also remember pledging one nation...indivisible. So my question is whether "the south will rise again" really means there is hope the Confederacy will rise again. Tongue in cheek of course, I ask myself will that mean that a southern agrarian economy built on slave labor is in our nation's future? I can't say whether southerners have a legitimate gripe this many years after that terrible war, but if anyone in this country, whether northern or southern born, believes that the Civil War was glorious or that sedition against the U.S. Government is a noble and viable political option or that a slave economy is a sustainable and logical system, then I'm afraid we have real and deep social problems to deal with as a nation.