Stone Mountain

October 25^th 2015 

In 2004 my wife and I visited Berlin as tourists. We saw the Brandenburg gate, enjoyed lunch at a cafe on "Unter Den Linden", took a bus ride to East Berlin, walked through Checkpoint Charlie. And then we saw the remnants of the Berlin Wall and the museum to victims of the Nazi regime. The effect was spine chilling. Horrifying pictures displayed in stark detail the evil that can grip a nation. A never ending flow of people moved silently past the evidence of the descent of mankind into the worst form of hegemony as the very air surrounding us took on a whole new meaning. We felt the horror and the pain. It was truly a memorial and a reminder that we must be ever vigilant to ward off the grip of mindlessness that can make us revert to our inherent animal behavior. 

When I think of Stone Mountain, I see a tourist trap honoring those who enslaved innocent victims and sought to break up the union to keep their vile and vicious way of life intact. It is an indictment of our modern culture that we haven't taken the time to make Stone Mountain a reminder of our inglorious past and a warning to prevent us from ever repeating this despicable era. Instead we have created a confederate Disneyland for the pleasure and enjoyment of millions, and perpetuation of the Southern Myth. It's time we faced the reality and created Stone Mountain as a monument to the victims of the confederacy, not the perpetrators of slavery.