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 The Chronicle welcomes you online! Please feel free to respond to these editorials or letters to the editor by sending your letters to the editor.

We condense letters; most, as published, won't exceed 300 words. A letter must include the writer's name and city, which will be published, and an address and telephone number for verification, which will not be published. Writers may be limited to one letter every 30 days. Open letters, letters to third parties and poetry are not considered. Letters from people living outside the Chronicle's circulation area usually are not considered.

Editor promoting racial divide

Web posted May 30, 2000

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Editor, The Chronicle

As chairman of the South Carolina Council of Conservative Citizens, I'd like to answer editorial page editor Suzanne Downing's comments about the South Carolina Confederate flag. Ms. Downing, in one of her ``dire warning'' editorials, laments the damage the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People boycott is doing to the economy of South Carolina, and warns that ``it will seep into the culture'' that South Carolina is the most backward state in the nation.

As everyone except Ms. Downing knows, the NAACP boycott hasn't hurt the economy of South Carolina one bit. This ``most backward state in the nation'' finds itself swarming with tourists, including hundreds who have come to see what now has become the most famous flag in the world.

I wish Ms. Downing had accompanied me and other members of the council the past few weeks as we talked to the South Carolina legislature. She would have been treated to an amazing sight. Legislative members who had supported the Confederate flag for years deserted us, almost overnight.

Were they bought out? Yes. By the NAACP? Hardly. The NAACP receives; it doesn't give. The Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, chambers of commerce, multinational corporation, all see ``that pesky flag'' as a stumbling block to their plans for global control. The NAACP is the battering ram, not the main player. The Ford Foundation pours half a million dollars into their coffers each year - and that is just a drop in their bucket.

Ironically, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth by some NAACP top dogs when the flag comes down. They're having the time of their lives insulting white people and their flag - and getting paid quite handsomely for their efforts. With thousand-dollar bills jingling in their pockets, are they having second thoughts about inducing rigor mortis in that cash cow? You bet.

In Sunday's editorial, Ms. Downing crows: ``Flag nightmare over. ... most people just want the nightmare to go away.''

I say to Ms. Downing, ``The nightmare will begin when the flag comes down, naive one.'' The race war that blacks have been waging against whites for 35 years will escalate. Flotsam from the ghettos of New York, Washington and Detroit will flock to our state, ready to rub our noses in the dirt. Violence against white students in our schools (already the No. 1 discipline problem in the schools) will become intolerable.

In short, the push to remake South Carolina into the image of South Africa will move into high gear.

Not a pretty picture, but it is one which Ms. Downing in her own small way is promoting.

Frances L. Bell, Windsor