Georgia Heritage Coalition - Perdue's Prevaricating Parrot Posse

Steve Scroggins

Steve Scroggins is a volunteer contributor to the Georgia Heritage Coalition who lives in Macon.

Perdue's Prevaricating Parrot Posse – Commentary by Steve Scroggins

In my October 14th column, I reported that Governor Perdue's lies had been refuted on television. The particular Perdue Lie I was addressing is quoted below.

This Perdue Lie was broadcast on WMAZ-TV Channel 13 (Macon) on August 7th.

"The people voted three to one affirming the Georgia flag that we have and I understand that some people are not happy about that and that's their prerogative to express that in any way they see fit."

SONNY LIED!

Governor, we're glad you're so supportive of our First Amendment rights. The sign above is how most Georgians see it. We're NOT unhappy about the so-called "affirmation"----the results of the insulting hoax referendum. We're ticked off that the insulting hoax happened in the first place. We're unhappy because we were promised a Fair Vote and you reneged, then you had the audacity to give us the Insult Referendum of 2004 and to call it a "choice" that settled the question. In short, we're unhappy about your LIES and INSULTS.

Not only does Perdue deliver these "misdirections" and lies, he now has his Prevaricating Parrot Posse trained to repeat them, too. First they suggest that the people have already had a vote (an obvious lie) and, secondly, that everyone loves the Perdue Counterfeit backroom-deal flag as evidenced by its overwhelming "victory."

When the DIRECT question is put to them, "Do you support a Fair Vote on the Georgia State flag?" or "Do you support HB-15?" the answer is not a simple Yes or No, but rather some distortion about how badly the Perdue backroom-deal flag defeated the ugly blue Barnes rag, aka "the ugliest flag in North America."

In other words, the Perdue backroom-deal flag smells like a bucket of bull manure baking in the July sun...and we're sorry if y'all don't like the smell of the baking manure...but at least it smells three times better than a bucket of decaying chicken livers crawling with maggots in the July sun. Less than one in ten Georgians voted, but three quarters of that small number preferred the manure. That small number had their say and made their choice.

Here's another recent example, an AP article published in the Dec. 28th Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, which quotes Republican House Speaker Glenn Richardson who was asked about the bill (HB-15) that was filed by Representative Tim Bearden, that calls for a Fair Vote in November 2006. His response?

Richardson, who was Perdue's floor leader when lawmakers adopted the latest flag, suggested Bearden's proposal won't fly.
"I feel like the people of Georgia had time to have their say and made a decision, as I recall, fairly strongly. But I'd have to read the bill. It will go through the same procedure as all bills do," Richardson said.

Allow me to translate Richardson's statement for you.

We don't want to talk about the old rose and we don't plan to let voters choose between the rose and the bucket of bull manure. We let voters choose between the bucket of manure and the bucket of rotten maggot-infested chicken livers. The voters overwhelmingly chose the bucket of bull manure by a margin of three to one. That's "strong." So that settles it.

Wrong, Mr. Richardson. As we told you almost a year ago, the March hoax insult referendum settles nothing.

When you contact your legislators urging them to support the Fair Vote (HB-15), don't let them deflect the issue with lies and irrelevancies. The March vote was not a "choice", it was not a Fair Vote, it was an insult.

The truth remains that most Georgia voters continue to want a FAIR Vote on the state flag---NOT a rigged hoax referendum like we had in March 2004. How can any fair-minded person---REGARDLESS of their personal preference----oppose letting the people have a TRUE choice, including the leading contender, the 1956 Georgia flag?

Only 9% of Georgia citizens---that is only 20% of registered voters----voted in that insulting March referendum - second lowest turnout in 20 years. A full eighty percent skipped that vote, showing clearly that Perdue's backroom-deal flag is NOT the people's choice. Less than 15% of Georgia's registered voters (that's less than 7% of Georgia's total citizens) held their noses and selected the corrupted backroom-deal flag that now flies over our Capitol.

In 2002, when CANDIDATE Perdue promised repeatedly to let voters choose their state flag by referendum, there were only two flags in contention---the '56 flag and the Barnes flag---no one even knew about his new "backroom deal" flag. It emerged from the backroom sometime between Perdue's inauguration and April of 2003. Perdue lied and deceived people across the state; then reneged on his promise for a Fair Vote once elected.

Now Speaker Glenn Richardson, Senator Eric Johnson and others are acting as Perdue's Prevaricating Parrot Posse [see image below]. No matter how many times or how many ways the lies are repeated, they are still lies. The people were promised a vote. They have NOT had a Fair vote. The March insult referendum doesn't fulfill the promise.

Putting the question to the people is the American way; it's the right thing to do. Let's have a Fair Vote. By putting the question to the people, how can we go wrong?

Perdue's new Backroom-Deal Counterfeit flag

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.