Shuck and Jive

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Georgia Attempts to Take Over Tennessee

I am getting a gun. That is it. Homophobes are trying to take over the church and Republicans in Georgia are trying to move the border! This is in today's Johnson City Press:

ATLANTA — Thirsting for more water in the midst of a drought, Georgia lawmakers took a step Wednesday toward moving the state line and tapping into a powerful river in a neighboring state.
The Senate unanimously approved a resolution Wednesday asserting that a flawed 1818 survey mistakenly placed Georgia’s northern line just short of the mighty Tennessee River. The measure also calls for the governor to establish a commission to sort out the dispute.
The House later voted 136-26 to pass a similar plan, which could soon go to Gov. Sonny Perdue.

[What kind of people elect an official named "Sonny?"]

The legislation alone can’t move the state line — and it doesn’t neccessarily seek to do so. Instead, it claims the current boundaries are drawn wrong, and that Georgia and Congress never agreed upon them.
Short of a legal challenge, though, any likely border change would likely require an agreement between Congress and the states. And
that’s a long-shot prospect scoffed at by Tennessee officials.

[I am still gettin' a gun].

An adviser to Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen on Wednesday called the proposal “absurd,” and state Rep. Gerald McCormick suggested it was a “ridiculous waste of taxpayer money.”
“It’s the silliest thing I’ve ever seen any
group of Republicans do. I’m embarrassed that they would embarrass the party like that,” said McCormick, a
Republican from Chattanooga, a Tennessee town just north of the state line. “They’re idiots.”



  1. I think these Peachy asshats in Georgia had better stop and think about the fact that Tennessee citizens and their government can and will meet any attempt to encroach with lethal force and do so legally. This is not a game.

    They have no clue the can of worms they're about to open. But they'd better stay down there.

    Now, if they weren't complete and total idiots. They'd build a desalinization plant on they're Atlantic coast.


  2. Guys,

    Calm down, here. Tn420, what are you saying, "lethal force??"

  3. In the event of the worst case scenario (we're just hyping it, relax), such an invasion would constitute a legitimate act of war.

    What do you suggest, Grace? Should we stand there and throw Turnips at them?

  4. Have a little pity for the poor rednecks - their electrolytes are probably out of balance. Why don't we just send them some pedialyte as a humanitarian gesture.

  5. Whew, TN420,

    I'm relieved. You're going to throwin turnips instead. (You could try tomatoes.) :) That gittin my guns talk pushed me over the edge.


  6. The most important thing is that no American, under any circumstances, ever experience inconvenience by making efforts to regulate water usage. If that means war, so be it. We all know that's superior to ceasing wasteful practices.


    Funny quote from the movie "Shooter" : "Welcome to Tennessee, the patron state of shooting stuff"

  7. Probably not the best time to remind people that I'm a native Georgian, but here we go.

    About Sonny. He's a piece of work. The story of how our first Republican governor since Reconstruction got elected is a beautiful example of Nixon's Southern Strategy.

    In 2001, the NAACP was threatening to boycott the State of Georgia because of our state flag, 2/3 of which was a modified Confederate battle flag. Adopted in 1956 as a hilarious "fuck you" to the Supreme Court after Brown v. Board, it was so embarrassing that the City of Atlanta bought a gross of pre-1956 flags (with red and white stripes instead of the battle flag) to fly in the city during the 1996 Olympics (I still think it's the prettiest one).

    Roy Barnes succeeded Zell Miller as governor, when Miller went to the Senate and subsequently lost his mind. Barnes had a reputation of being tough with the Lege, and decided that even though it meant his likely defeat in 2002, used the bully pulpit and his allies in the Lege to push through the compromise flag, which while very ugly, shrunk the battle flag and placed it alongside all the historical flags of Georgia. He even put "In God We Trust" on it to get Republicans to vote for it.

    Enter Sonny. He ran railing about how Barnes was trying to strip Georgia of its "Heritage" (read: pride in its racist past) and got the poor rural whites up in arms. Signs dotted the landscape with the 1956 flag and "BOOT BARNES" printed on them. Sonny promised a referendum on the flag, successfully using it to paint him as a populist and Barnes as an autocrat. Add to that the post-911 atmos (and the disgusting ads run by Saxby Chambliss comparing triple-amputee Vietnam Vet Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden), and Barnes went down in defeat.

    As promised, Sonny got a referendum on the ballot. Georgia is not a voter initiative state, so any issue voters "vote" on is either a straw poll (like this) or a constitutional amendment (such as those to institute a state lottery for education or to make people with The Gay permanent second-class citizens).

    Imagine the racist redneck surprise when Sonny caved in to pressure from groups like the NAACP and altered the choices on the ballot. What we got to "vote" on was either the Barnes flag or a modified version of the pre-1956 flag. The latter won mostly because the former is hideous. Same racists put up flag signs, this time with "SONNY LIED". I was tempted to cross the state, painting "TOLD YOU SO" on all of them.

    In 2006, the Dems had a real shot at taking back the governor's office. The very popular Secretary of State, Cathy Cox, looked like she could beat Perdue and become Georgia's first woman governor (take that, Lurleen Wallace). Running against her in the primary was then-Lite Gov Mark Taylor (self proclaimed "Big Guy" due to his, well, girth). As Democrats are wont to do, the whole process degraded into infighting, with Cox accusing Taylor of corruption and Taylor accusing Cox of being racist. In the end, Taylor beat Cox in the primary and went on to challenge Sonny in what looked like "The Clash of the Good-Ol Boys". Taylor lost 58-38.

    Yes, the water issue is a mess, with an awful lot of grandstanding between Southern governors (always fun regardless of party). Georgia is in another bloody fight with Alabama and Florida over the Chattahoochee, with the US Army Corps of Engineers (which controls the big dams on the river) in the middle. It's a matter of balancing Atlanta's reserve of drinking water, the only real green power in the state, the navigability of the Chattahoochee below Columbus, the fish and shellfish in Apalachicola bay, and the bitchy property owners on Lake Lanier. If it hasn't already, expect future fights with South Carolina over the Savannah. While the Tennessee technically does not enter Georgia, a lot of its tributaries do. We even get to deal with the TVA (Blue Ridge, Nottely, Chatuge Reservoir, Ocoee/Toccoa River).

    And yes, we'd have more of a leg to stand on if we didn't have such an anti-environmental governor and legislature in power at the moment.

  8. Thanks for that, Fly! That was a fascinating history. We are going to have to deal with water issues. Perhaps find a way to share and conserve?

  9. Aw, hells no, John! We're "rugged individualist" conservatives in the South! We use the coercive force of government to get our way!

    Note that to many Southern conservatives, the above makes perfect sense.