Who Doesn't Get It?

"It's a Southern thang and y'all don't get it!"    I saw that quote around a picture of  a Confederate flag.    For months now, everyone traveling along a stretch of Route 16 in Colchester has also been treated to a "stars n' bars" flag prominently displayed in front of one of the trashiest properties in town.     You can't look away from this symbol of Dixieland - it's sticking way out onto this state highway.    I know that some images of the Confederacy are often included as symbols of a self-proclaimed redneck America, but anyone who thinks it is perfectly cool to shove a Confederate flag in my face is displaying an outrageous level of ignorance.    In this age of a return to far right wing politics not seen since the fifties, many extremist hate groups, politicians and broadcasters are even pushing reactionary agendas that make 1955 or even the pre-1860s era seem like the good old days.   Over 620,000 people died in this bitter dispute over slavery and preservation of our union.    Despite a devastated postwar South and continued suppression of civil rights for another century, we have made great strides in breaking down these barriers.   There's no going back.   Confederate battle flags belong in museums or historical reenactments.    They are not acceptable in telling our first black President that you won't let him take your guns.    When I visited Alabama in the 1990s, I saw a compelling exhibit at Birmingham's Civil Rights Museum, advances in American rocketry at Huntsville and a proudly charged up football crowd at the University of Alabama's opening game.   Those images should represent the South.    The Confederate flag should represent a bygone and no so nostalgic chapter in American history.