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Edited on Tue Jul-19-05 08:04 PM by LastDemocratInSC
The Ravenel Bridge is nice. It's long, it's high, it spans the water. It's even picturesque. The problem is that the bridge is named for a still-living man who many fancy as the Holy City's most famous son. The fact is that Arthur Ravenel is a right-wing racist asshole who presided over the decline of Charleston's fortunes in Congress ... and didn't do a thing about it.
The bridge should have been named for the man who made Charleston what it once was. Lucius Mendel Rivers served 16 terms in Congress and secured the military bases that gave the Charleston its formidable economic strength and national military importance. Arthur Ravenel sat on his hands while base closure commissions chopped the area's economic legs off at the knees.
Wait, wait, don't tell me ... Oh! Rivers was a Democrat and Ravenel is a Republican? Maybe that explains it all.
To understand Ravenel, consider his comments upon the removal of the confederate flag from the State House dome: "Can you believe that there are those who think that the General Assembly of South Carolina is going to ... knuckle under, roll over and do the bidding of that organization known as the National Association for Retarded People?"
What a guy.
Nice bridge - bad judgment and taste in naming it. That defines the soul of Charleston more than anything else.
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