Fun with Flags

I never developed an appreciation of the flag fetish, so it's always struck me as funny to see so many cars, front yards and lapels decorated with the American flag. It’s as though people fear they'll forget what country they're in unless they see constant reminders. Do people in, say, Mauritania have flags all over the place, including their clothing, or this just an annoying American habit?

Today I arrived to find a gargantuan American flag filling the space behind my desk. A golden eagle, wings spread, sits atop the flagpole. Certain persons at CityBeat — let’s call them “members of the sales staff” — seem to believe I suffer a deficiency of patriotism. Before I knew what was going on, a particularly — what's the word? Oh yes — fanatical sales exec was at my desk reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. To my horror, he even corralled an innocent new copy editor into joining him. I feared my poster of Bob Marley would fall off the wall or my gas mask — given me by a San Francisco anarchist for protection against police tear gas — would burst into flames.

When my children were little, I always told them that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is optional; they didn’t have to do it just because all the other kids and the teacher did. I explained that I don’t pledge allegiance because the flag is nothing but a symbol of a political system (“the republic for which it stands”). I hold my allegiance to another power altogether.

While I would never burn or destroy an American flag, I find it a distasteful thing, a symbol of raw nationalism, the kind of thinking that says the United States is “the greatest country in the world.” I don’t believe that for a minute.

It’s a very touchy subject. People often speak of “desecrating the flag.” I believe that to be an impossibility. One can only desecrate that which is sacred. The flag is not sacred, at least to me. It is a political symbol, nothing more.

Then I learned something that changed my feelings. This flag at CityBeat was "pirated," as it was told to me. Those wily sales people have been spreading mischief far and wide. To show my appreciation and to balance the political energy field in the office, I found a sound clip for “Internationale" and played it on CityBeat’s PA system:

Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

Oh, yeah, by the way, I know who the proper owner of the flag is. Look over your shoulder, fellow Americans.

— Gregory Flannery
(Photo:Sean Hughes)

Comments

[Not the Mamma Cass!]

I don't fly a flag to remind myself of what country I'm in: I fly it to advise others of how proud I am to live in this country, the flag being a symbol of what America stands for (not what it sometimes turns out to be).

I don't mind flag burning as a form of political protest. I find it's not an action against what America stands for, but against what politicians are doing to it (that is, flag burning expresses dissatisfaction with governmental actions or lack thereof).

Flag-themed apparel? Whatever- usually just looks bad on the wearer.

[danny cross]

I thought that guy was making fun of the the Pledge of Allegiance... I think my participation might have desecrated his pledge.

[Gregory Flannery]

Danny, one must always be wary of right wingers. They are quite adept at snaring people and tricking them into collaboration.

[Josh Flannery]

It is true that I was told at a very early age that no one can force me to recite the pledge of allegiance nor to stand during the national anthem. From a very early age, I refused to do either but was always respectful of everyone else's desire to do so, sitting quietly until it was over. And on not too rare of an occasion, I have received dirty looks by people participating in these quaint little rituals.
Once, a friend and I were even heckled at a high school softball game WHILE the anthem was being played. The two middle-aged men standing behind us kept making, what I'm sure they thought were quite clever, remarks such as "Looks like they need to reinstate the draft" and one even said "These boys need to go back to Africa"!
Africa?! I've never been to Africa before and if they were making one of those oh so witty racist remarks, I would highly doubt one would infer from my complexion that I have any African ancestry, though I may and just not know it. Maybe he was making fun of my Bob Marley T-shirt.
Perhaps all the flag-wavers ought to show the same respect for our beliefs as we show for their's.

[Jeremy Flannery]

However, for those who wish to show nationalistic pride, I intend to create the "Most American American in America" T-shirt with 214 medium-sized American flags to recognize each year the United States has existed until the U.S. Constitution died in 2000. I'll need some start-up capital, though...maybe a federal grant to get going.

[Not the Mama Cass!]

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America.
And to the Republic for which it stands, One Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.

The Republic for which it stands = American idea/ls, a goal toward which we all should always strive.

One Nation = E Pluribus Unum (from many, one). Strength in Diversity.

Under God (thank you rebaiting McCarthyites).

with Liberty (not Equality; in America you are free to fail).

And Justice (not perfection).

For All (not just Sales Staff Zealots).

[David Gallaher]

Flags were useful in battles which are the fundamental reason governments formed in the first place... to put a line between "us" and "them."
So flags represent nostalgia among the "us;" derision among the "them."
To get beyond battles, we need to get beyond governments.

(Peaceful atheistic anarchist IRISHMAN--hear that, Flannery's?-- speaking.)

[Marilyn]

I found the "flag phenomenon" after 9/11 and at the start of the war quite disturbing.

Before these events, you'd see flags in normal quantities. After, the flag was everywhere. Little ones, huge ones, flags flying off cars. Hell, I even saw (repeatedly) a pickup truck that had a pole somehow rigged in the bed with a full size flag rippling away.

It almost seemed that fear invoked such a passion for flag waving.

But that burst of Americana is better than the confederate flag pride I see out here, or is it?