Writing in today's Washington Post, columnist Courtland Milloy has some harsh words for George Allen on his fascination with nooses and other such "symbols:"
Unlike Allen, when I grew up I stopped messing with nooses. It's child's play if you are a child, but a tool of injustice in the hands of a man. Lethal and loaded with symbolism, a noose today tends to send a message that anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time is fair game for a killing. In that regard, only the mushroom cloud could be any clearer.
Very true, and Allen has never come up with anything but lame, non-credible answers regarding his continued "messing with nooses."
Milloy concludes:
When [Allen] claims not to have seen the racial implications of such decor, he exposes himself as being either naive in the extreme -- or deceitful.Some prominent black supporters have thrown Allen a knotted lifeline, and he may yet be pulled free of the allegations. But what he really needed was a good scoutmaster to warn him that playing with nooses can cause rope burn and might even choke a political campaign to death.
Let's hope that the voters of Virginia see George Allen's noose for what it is - a symbol of everything wrong with the way this man - who wants to be President, no less! - thinks.
Lowell Feld is Netroots Coordinator for the Jim Webb for US Senate Campaign. The ideas expressed here belong to Lowell Feld alone, and do not represent those of Jim Webb, his advisors, staff, or supporters.
I would not have put as much symbolism in the noose had I also not had some activist friends from the black community who explained things to me one night over some beer.... Beer is another of God's truth serums.....
It all makes sense now...
Allen displayed a noose hung from a ficus tree in his office as late as 'the early 90's' when he was 40 years old.
He hadn't learned that a noose is a symbol of lynching (and not just to blacks) by the time he was 40? Well, I guess it's not like he was a history major or anything (What? He WAS a history major? Oh... never mind).
From Sen. Allen again apologizes for remark, regrets use of Confederate flag By WARREN FISKE, The Virginian-Pilot © September 13, 2006
Allen, 54, said he did not see racial overtones in the Confederate flag. He said he was a rebellious youth and viewed the banner as a "symbol against authority." As a history major at the University of Virginia in the early 1970s, he said, he also began to see the flag as a proud heritage symbol for those with ancestors from the South who fought in the Civil War.
I can see it now....a large picture of a nuclear mushroom cloud in his next office.
Now That's the real George Allen.....
Buzz...Buzz....Mosquito