Project Logic Ga

I read the July 2013 issue of Georgia Trend magazine yesterday and the times they are a changing.  One story told of a speech given by Governor Nathan Deal at the GOP state convention.

http://www.georgiatrend.com/July-2013/Neely-Young-Shame-On-Us/

He spoke of the future demographics for our state and how Whites would one day have minority status here.  That trend made me think about a bumper sticker that read “If I knew it was going to be like this I would have picked my own damn cotton.”  Actually, if not for stolen land from Native Americans and stolen people from Africa, this nation wouldn’t be what it is today and the European powers from the colonial period would still have swag on this continent.

What about the bumper sticker or T-shirt that says Indians should have had better immigration policies and homeland security?  The past is the past and the southern state that truly aims positively toward the future first will win.  Germany’s atrocities from the last century are some of the worst in history but the people in Savannah will show you a beautiful building, currently used by the technical college, which was constructed as part of an effort to attract a Germany automaker.

I can’t remember if it was BMW which went to South Carolina or Mercedes which ended up in Alabama but the Germans were concerned with the confederate flag drama and imagined racial arguments on the plant floor.  If the fools who committed genocide came turn the corner, southerners can also.

To me, there are two parts to the post civil rights phase.  First, lovers of the Confederacy can admire the military keenness without romanticizing the cause.  The cause simply wasn’t just.  It was based on oppression and money.  Second, the way some young Blacks are carrying themselves justifies (in some minds) a new reason for racism.  We use to say we knew who we were and we knew whose we were.  But, the youth today don’t give a rat’s –ss about legacy, history or standing on our shoulders.

They have a bigger commitment to glamorizing thug, pimps and strippers than moving Black forward.  Yea, they are moving us backward.  On an old Public Enemy rap album, someone with a fake southern accent said he was the grand wizard of the Klan and he wanted to thank the pimps, pushers and hustlers in the Black community for doing their job for them.  P.E. was right and that why they were the prophets of rage.

Georgia’s future could be sunny.  An article in that Georgia Trend issue told of the solar power efforts in Germany and the new efforts in the peach state.  Huh?  I have been to Germany three times and the place is about a third as sunny as Georgia.  We must harness the energy of the sun and make Georgia green.

The last great article was about a tour of downtown redevelopment in Georgia and I loved it.  As quiet as it is kept, this area was my field in grad school.  I love downtown lofts and dig the café culture of Paris, Barcelona and Prague.  Yea, my blue passport has many stamps but there is something special about rural Georgia.  As the rust belt continues to rust and as Northerners brace for another cold winter, the sunny Georgia from that solar power story is the same sunny Georgia that could attract people and industry.

My master’s thesis was about using cultural amenities to attract industry. Wow, that was 1990 but I was a bit of a prophet myself—or should a say a profit because I wanted to make a career of prepping Georgia for a cool future.

Governor Deal knows the deal.  Georgia could have a bright future we embrace the coming changes in people, power and places.

For years, I have been friends with a group of Georgians who could have easily join the moderate section of the GOP but (oh yeah) the Tea Party killed that division of the conservative movement.  After reading of Deal’s speech, I can tell you of three or four Black women who could win congressional seats here while laying the foundation of the counter-argument to Juggernaut Hillary Clinton.  But, the good old boys won’t hear that.