Ben Jones, former Dukes of Hazzard star and former Georgia Congressman (D), is also a 'proud member' of the Sons of Conservative Veterans (SCV). The group has been labeled a hate group by the SPLC. Jones is a relic of the SCV, when the Democrats in the South were known as the Dixiecrats, so don't let the D fool you. He's much like the GOP, except even Republican Candidates are abandoning ship over the racist symbol that was resurrected during the Civil Rights Era.
Grasping at straws, Jones tries his damnedest to plead the case for the Battle Flag of the Confederacy to be legally displayed by states in the American South. The fight to place a KKK leader, Nathan Bedford Forrest, on Mississippi specialty license plates was noted by the SPLC, Forrest being quite a cruel and loathsome character:
Before the war, according to a newspaper account at the time, he was known for personally bullwhipping slaves who were held stretched out in the air by four other slaves. Women slaves were reportedly stripped naked and whipped with a leather thong dipped in salt. Former slaves later backed up these accounts...Neo-Confederate apologists in the SCV and elsewhere claim that Forrest has been mischaracterized, that he was a good man who disbanded the Klan when it became violent.
.
Jones is in utter denial that the South is racist. As far as Cooter is concerned, it is a place where both Black and White live together in perfect harmony.
We worked together, in a biracial way, to create the Sunbelt (in the South). "The South, in case you didn't know, is the 'most progressive, bi-racial, fastest-growing economy in the country. We changed the South, we brought black and white together."
He resorts to the most sinister form of hyperbole, calling it 'cultural cleansing,' which is highly reminiscent of ethnic cleansing, eliciting images of Holocaust-style persecution. He remarks on Dylann Roof's pictures posing with the same symbol that adorns the roof of the General Lee.
"If they found him with an American Flag, none of this sick, cultural cleansing, feeding-frenzy would be going on!"
Jones tried to play the 'if you knew my heart, you'd see I'm not racist card.'
I played basketball with Martin Luther King III, I don't think they know the heart of the 70 million Americans who are simply trying to respect and receive the same tolerance and understanding and diversity.
Cooter was at the center of the case where the Supreme Court, just last week, ruled that a state can ban the Confederate Flag on their license plates. He represented the SCV in the case and is obviously still bitter over his defeat.
His argument reached a fever pitch towards the end of the segment, when he claimed that because George Washington owned slaves, the Capitol city will have to be renamed. In addition to that, the Declaration of Independence would be invalidated because many of the signatories owned slaves. According to Cooter, this 'cultural cleansing' is a slippery slope that has just begun. Never fear, Cooter is here to fight this 'thing' til the bitter end, and when hell freezes over, he'll continue to fight on the ice.
