Georgia Chamber of Falsehoods mounts propaganda blitz – Commentary by Steve Scroggins

Fasten your seatbelts and grab your air-sickness bags, folks. The Georgia Chamber of Commerce is mounting a full-scale propaganda blitz to push their favored flag down our throats.

Technically, the 2003 General Assembly already did that; the Georgia Chamber just wants to ram it home again. The Georgia Chamber lives in fear that Georgians will return this forced meal and ruin the ambiance as they feast on pheasant under glass.

As you know, the 2003 Perdue Counterfeit flag was designed specifically to divide Georgians, split the vote and thwart the will of the people. As you no doubt will recall, the elections of November 2002 were a statewide mandate for a FAIR VOTE in Georgia to determine the flag the people want.

Perdue promised a Fair Vote and was elected to deliver it. He introduced a bill known then as HB380 that would have allowed for a vote between the 2001 Barnes flag and the 1956 flag. That's when the wheeling and dealing started in earnest. Enter the Georgia Chamber and the Metro Atlanta Chamber from stage left.

They went into a back room and the money changed hands. A true choice for Georgians was sold to the highest bidder and the loser was the people of Georgia.

Essentially, the power brokers from the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the Atlanta Metro Chamber convinced Perdue and key legislators that Georgians would accept this chicanery. The insult is so bold, it's hard to imagine that anyone could be so brazen and keep a straight face.

These people are looking the people of Georgia in the eye and telling them a bold faced lie. If such insults don't make you angry, I don't know what would.

Their mouth-pieces in the media (at the AJC and other outlets) have been whining since January that no one is actively campaigning to advocate one flag or the other from this rigged no-choice referendum. They were getting nervous that an upset loss might occur.

Then the bogus Schapiro poll hit the news a few weeks back. Remember, folks, these are the same folks who predicted Barnes would win BIG in 2002. Their bogus poll suggested that the Barnes flag had a big lead and very likely might win.

This was opportune timing for the Georgia Chamber to begin their scare campaign, to gather up financial support for a full-scale media blitz to ensure their flag of corruption won the bogus referendum.

Georgia Heritage Coalition has been pressing for a Fair Vote since very early in this year. Many legislators (and over 50% of Georgians!) agree that this is the only way to fairly and truly settle the matter.

The Georgia Chamber holds onto the dream that this rigged referendum will really settle the flag issue. They hope that repeating the Lie thousands of times via mailers, radio, TV and newspaper ads will make it true in the minds of Georgians.

Nazi Propaganda Chief Joseph Goebbels is credited with saying that "Repetition is the lynchpin of propaganda." The Georgia Chamber and their media axis allies are shoving in their lies to the hilt, over and over. In response, we keep rebutting their lies repeatedly. They have more funding that we do, so who do they think will win the argument?

The key these Chamber Propagandists fail to recognize, of course, is the intelligence of the people of Georgia. These same Chambers of Commerce gave Roy Barnes over $20 million dollars for his campaign on the theory that money will win elections because money can buy repetition via the mass media.

The people of Georgia sent them a message. Essentially, the message was, We don't care how often you repeat a lie, we know the truth and we're not buying your manure. The people of Georgia showed the Chambers and the world that money doesn't always win elections in Georgia. Votes win elections. Our votes are not for sale.

We hear from our sources that the Georgia Chamber blitz will hit the airwaves between now and March 2nd. They will be in the newspapers and their mass-mailers will go in everyone's mailboxes. I received mine yesterday. More on this below.

We now expect them to trot out everyone they can muster to endorse the new flag of corruption. Perdue, certain Republican leaders in the General Assembly and Tyrone Brooks have all endorsed the new counterfeit flag.

Yesterday, former President Jimmy Carter announced his endorsement of the new flag. We predict that before March 2nd, they will trot out former Governor Barnes to say that the 2001 flag was only intended as a temporary measure with which to displace the "divisive" '56 flag. He will endorse the new flag of corruption. Can they coerce Senator Zell Miller to endorse their corruption? Or is he no longer in favor these days?

The Georgia NAACP has been quoted numerous times as supporting the Barnes flag. The Publisher of Georgia Trend Neely Young has gone on record as saying he'll vote for the Barnes flag "to honor him." These last holdouts will most likely be pressed into saying that they endorse whatever Roy Barnes endorses.

So there you have it folks. Everyone "who counts" in Georgia supports the new flag, so why don't you?

The answer is simple of course. Our honor and integrity is not for sale. We won't accept an insult and thank them for it.

We feel certain that the Chamber propagandists will develop several flavors of mailers and TV/radio ads to appeal to different target audiences. The mailer I received was the Andrew Young flavor.

Let's Dissect the Mass-Mail Propaganda...

One side of the large 6 inch by 10 inch card has the new counterfeit flag with text above and below. "Put the Focus on the Future....Not the Past." Duh! This is a no-brainer. They have advocated forgetting history all along. "We don't need our history or our heritage," they argue. "Can't we just move on?" they ask. "We sold your heritage for money in 2001 and again in 2003. But that's in past, can't we just Focus on the Future?"

On the flip side of the mailer card is a note from Andrew Young, accompanied by his photo and an image of the 2001 Barnes rag (the Ugliest Flag in North America) and the corrupt counterfeit flag of 2003. The descriptions they use are telling.

They label the 2003 flag as one "Adopted with Bipartisan Support." Duh!! The House is majority Democrat and the Governor is Republican. The 2003 flag was signed into law May 8th. I suppose the words "Bipartisan Support" are supposed to magically make us believe that the support was "unanimous." This was only a minor deception relative to the BIG LIES in the text.

On March 2, Georgians get a voice in our new flag. This first sentence is BIG LIE number one that is self-exposing. It is officially our "new flag," therefore, it's a done deal. It's already the flag. Now they want us to approve it. Even if we don't approve it, it's still the flag.

If we approve the new flag---the red, white and blue version---the flag debate is over. WRONG! They've been repeating this BIG LIE for months now. This bogus rigged referendum settles nothing.

Unfortunately, if it loses, the flag issue returns to the legislature. That raises the controversy all over again, creating another round of bad publicity for our state. Sorry, Andy, if y'all had not stolen the people's flag in 2001, there would be no controversy today except for a few malcontents who have squealed for two decades and who will do so until they cannot draw a breath. We know that these same malcontents (Tyrone Brooks, et al) would come back in a few years and complain that this counterfeit flag is too "Confederate" for their tastes.

They will take a few years off (from state flags) to pass legislation like 2003's HB899, to dynamite Stone Mountain's Confederate Memorial and remove flags from public cemeteries. Even if a majority of Georgians didn't favor a Fair Vote (which they do), Brooks and the whiners will keep the some controversy going forever until they erase every shred of Georgia's Confederate history. We will oppose such efforts every step of the way. If you want to call exposure of treachery and demanding Fairness "bad publicity" then get ready for bad publicity from now on.

Some people will vote for the previous "blue" flag for various reasons, hoping to get the flag back before the legislature. Oh, the horror! Can't we all just get along? This is a silly appeal to those who don't want to hear ANY controversy. Sorry, folks, our government was designed to allow dissent and debate. It was purposefully designed to allow deliberation on important issues. The people of Georgia deserve to have their voices truly heard and the only way to achieve that is to have a Fair Vote.

However, if the new red, white and blue flag passes, the flag debate does not go back to the legislature. Wow! They consider this BIG LIE so important, they had to repeat it again. It's still a lie.

Our new red, white and blue flag was passed with bi-partisan support. Leaders from both parties agree that it's time to put the flag issue to rest. There they go again. Repeating the magic "biparsan support" phrase...and the "red, white and blue" phrase designed to appeal to all Americans. If the "leaders" really want to "put the flag issue to rest," then they will support a Fair Vote to get a true measure of people's will. Our leaders KNOW this bogus rigged referendum gives no such measure of what the people want, and they've known that since last April.

Voting for the new red, white and blue flag does just that.. The BIG LIE brought out for the third time. The rest of the card just urges the recipient to vote for the "red, white and blue" flag. So they repeat that phrase five times.

In the short span of 12 sentences, they repeat the BIG LIE four times and "red, white and blue" phrase five times. No doubt about it, folks, these people have studied Goebbels' propaganda methods and they truly believe that "Repetition is the lynchpin of propaganda."

Keep your barf-bags handy, folks, you're sure to hear this message over and over and over between now and March 2.

To paraphrase a great Georgian Lewis Grizzard when he was asked about a Yale-Harvard football game....neither of these flags is a Georgia flag, so we hope they both lose. Both these flags represent corruption and heritage sold for 30 pieces of silver. We endorse neither. This rigged vote settles nothing. So long as either of them is the "official" flag in the absense of a Fair Vote, then the people of Georgia are the losers.

But, don't forget, come July and November, these "losers" will be closely scrutinizing the voting records of their legislators. Our grass roots activists will make sure the people know who betrayed them.

Steve Scroggins is Adjutant of the Lt. James T. Woodward Camp 1399, Sons of Confederate Veterans, in Warner Robins, GA and a frequent GHC contributor of parody and political cartoons and graphics.

Village Idiots Promote their Rainbow flag