Part 2
-- A Ruse?
by Connie Chastain-Ward
One day last fall, Pensacola City Manager Tom Bonfield arrives at work and parks in his reserved parking place at City Hall. As he exits his vehicle, he glances up at the five flags display in front of the brick and glass edifice, which he has seen numerous times in the past year and three months. But for some reason, on this day, out of the clear blue, he says to himself, "Hmmm. I wonder if that Confederate battle flag up there is historically correct. I think I'll have my staff research that."
I don't think that's how it happened, folks. I think there's a lot more to the Pensacola flag situation than meets the eye -- a lot more than they're telling us. The timing alone is enough to make it highly suspect. As I explained to Mr. Bonfield in a letter (included below), Pensacola's flag flap coincides exactly with a concerted campaign to completely erase Confederate heritage everywhere across Dixie.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this campaign is that it seeks to enlist the support and enforcement of the government at all levels. Its goal is history as decided by committee and heritage as allowed by special interests.
It will be interesting to see if I get a reply.
February 15, 2000
Mr. Tom Bonfield, Pensacola City Manager
P. O. Box 12910
Pensacola, FL 32521-0001
Dear Mr. Bonfield,
Please provide me with answers to the following questions.
1. Did you start your job in Pensacola 18 months ago with questions already in your mind regarding the historical accuracy of the Confederage battle flag in Pensacola's Five Flag's displays?
2. If not, please tell me when you first got the idea, and what caused it; i.e., did someone come to you and give you this idea? Please identify exactly what and who initially brought the matter to your attention, and exactly what they said.
3. At the February 10th City Council meeting, Mr. DeSorbo said you first had reason to consider the flag issue three months ago, and you confirmed this. Please advise me what happened three months ago that first gave you reason to consider the flag issue. I would like a complete account of the situation, not an overview.
4. At the same meeting you said you had consulted with three historians and those consultations led to your decision that the battle flag was historically incorrect. However, I have seen and heard references to only one historian, J. Earle Bowden. Advise me whether you took into account Mr. Bowden's longterm position against flying the battle flag. Also advise me who the other historians are. Tell me what are their credentials and what are their personal positions on this issue.
5. Please identify the documentation related to this issue produced by the historians and advise me of its level of historic trustworthiness.
6. At the February 10th City Council meeting, you said you had your staff begin researching the flag issue when you first had reason to consider it three months ago. Please identify everyone on your staff who took part in the research and what their activities comprised.
7. Please advise me why you kept this issue from the public for almost three months while the research took place. Why did you not consider the public's right to know about an important cultural issue in our community before action was taken on it?
8. Please cite the authority for accepting "historical accuracy" as the only criteria in determining what flags go in the Five Flags displays. Is there a city ordinance that defines the criteria for authorizing the specific five flags for city displays? Does this authority specifically state that historical accuracy is the only consideration allowed, and public opinion is irrelevant?
9. Who wrote the unsigned document titled "City Flag Decision" that appears on the City of Pensacola website under the heading "Current News"?
Circumstantial evidence is compelling that the removal of the Confederate battle flag in Pensacola is part of the current campaign to rewrite Southern history and cast the Confederacy and its people in the role of history's greatest evil. This abundantly financed campaign is craftily designed to pin unique and irrevocable guilt for 400 years of intercontinental slavery on the relatively small population of white people who lived in the South during the 4 years the Confederacy existed.
History is being rewritten every day in order to demonize our Confederate ancestors. It is being rewritten in Pensacola by our own city government. Consider the aforemention unsigned document titled "City Flag Decision."
"...the City ... is respectful of those who see [the Confederate battle flag as] a symbol of southern heritage and tribute to ancestors who fought under it during the Civil War..."
Yet that same document states, "... Pensacola was under confederate (sic) occupation from January 8, 1861 until May 10, 1862 ..." (emphasis mine). "Occupied" means, "To seize possession of and maintain control over by or as if by conquest; seized and controlled as by military invasion."
The Confederacy did not "seize" and "conquer" Pensacola. Pensacola was part of the state of Florida, which voluntarily seceded from the Union and voluntarily joined the Confederacy. To cast the Confederates as conquerers -- as an occupation force -- in their own nation is an egregious lie and only a hairsbreadth away from the slanderous label "traitor" constantly thrown at our ancestors by those waging the cultural cleansing campaign against Dixie. The Union forces were the invaders, conquerers and occupiers, Mr. Bonfield; the Confederates were here to defend Pensacola.
The website must be corrected immediately. If it is not, we will clearly understand that the much ballyhooed "historical accuracy" motivation with regard to the flag is a ruse, and the City of Pensacola has joined forces with the cultural Marxists who intend to purge the South of her unique and honorable Confederate heritage.
Understand something, sir. Good Southerners and proud Confederate descendants are engaged in a battle to take back their ancestors' honored symbols from the racists on one hand and the leftist liars on the other. Despite intentional or unintentional efforts to thwart our progress, such as the one the City of Pensacola is engaging in right now, we will prevail.
It was wrong to take the battle flag off city displays. It should be put back up immediately.
I await your reply.
Sincerely,
Connie Ward
/hs
cc: Honorable John Fogg, Mayor
Members of the City Council
J. Earle Bowden
Phillip White, Sons of Confederate Veterans
Ron Colson, Chairman, Southern Party of Florida
Charles Lunsford, Heritage Preservation Association
Escambia County Board of Commissioners
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Original content Copyright ©
2000 by Connie Ward, Perpetrator. All rights reserved.
February/March 2000
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