Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	6/15/2003

For the Record:

I was so impressed with the Santayanesque quote I found for my comments in my 6/12 posting, that I have to repeat it:

"If we don't come to terms with what happened then, we can't deal with what's happening now."

[Ed Cone, Greensboro News & Record, Nov. 1999]

Here are two items of current interest to various Greensboro residents where the historical record is indeed worth review in an attempt to understand what is happening now:

Global Transpark/ FedEx

The image to the right was scanned off a 1993-1994 North Carolina State Transportation Map. Two hundred and forty million dollars and essentially zero jobs later we have a brand new tax-payer financed run way in the middle of nowhere in eastern North Carolina. The runway and airport facility have essentially no customers using them. Meanwhile, 150 miles due west in Greensboro the fight goes on over the air cargo facility for FedEx. (I really enjoy the colors on the plane they used in this promo picture for the Global Transpark.)

Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Committee

Facts can always be challenged but here is a quote read into the Congressional Record on February 28th, 1980:

"It should be emphasized that neither the Communist Workers Party march nor the Klan/Nazi group attack had any connection with a local Greensboro issue. The "Death to the Klan" march was held in Greensboro simply because that is where CWP chairman Nelson Johnson lives and the local CWP is based. The members of the United Racist Front who reponded to the CWP's baiting were not from Greensboro, but from Winston-Salem, Lincolnton and other towns and cities. Neither was the incident a racial confrontation. Four of the (five) CWP leaders killed were whites. The confrontation was really the result of one violent street gang challenging another to come to a 'rumble.'"

While there is certain value in understanding the past, might it be worth considering dropping the word "Greensboro" from the committee's name so as to give the issue the larger picture it deserves? (Ironically, three and half years later, the Congressman who read this into the Congressional Record was himself "killed" by "communists.")

9:24:20 PM

comment []