NORTH COAST TIMES E A G L E , JULY 2002
PAGE 11
RANDALL ENOS
FLAGS PASSING BY
Whenever an American flag is unfurled I feel that
I am a stranger instead of a citizen. I don't dislike the flag.
I just feel that flagwavers and I live in separate countries.
Flags are everywhere In public places, of course,
but they bloom also from houses, offices, automobiles,
stenciled on T-shirts and worn as lapel pins. These
persistent and nagging proclamations of Americanhood,
which might seem reasonable though rude in a foreign
country seem discriminatory and shabbily neurotic here
at home
I am sure that most people who feel a compulsion
to mark themselves with a flag believe in freedom and
democracy for themselves and those they regard as like
themselves, but I doubt they feel the same passion about
the rights and liberties of others who practice a different
religion (or none), or who have a different skin color or are
recent immigrants.
The flag conceals more than it illuminates. Its red
stripes represent the blood shed by the early patriots who,
if one needs to be reminded, were traitors. The stars are
symbols of conquest, the brutal displacement of one civil
ization by another Some of our citizens veil themselves
with flags, merging self-perceived inadequacies with the
civic inequities and empirical ambitions disguised by
fervent nationalism. Underneath the patriotic bunting can
be sensed the grim frenzy and unforgiving intolerance for
new ideas and those who engage in them. The Pledge
of Alliance to the Flag that children must say every day
in public schools (which contains the phrase, "One nation
under God") is the national school prayer.
A flag is, after all, a tribal totem, relatively unsoph
isticated in an expanding global civilization in which such
iconoclastic relics of humanity's immaturity should be
displayed in museums.
Yet people still do get upset when someone
trods upon a flag or blows a nose on its stars or stripes.
Making shirts of flags or burning them in public protest
gives police and some military veterans (not all) apoplexy.
Patriots, poor confused souls who think their personal
lives would improve if the USA dominated the earth, roar
with anger and anguish because "desecrating" the flag is
protected by the Constitution's guarantee of free speech
and is in character with the precepts of democracy. A
piece of cloth, whatever its mythological imperative, is
not to be placed above human rights. What is freedom
worth if in dissent against its loss its symbols cannot be
dramatically abused?
Symbols are powerful They define purpose, hold
people together, but separate them also. Humanity is
cross-breeding at an incredible rate; primitive icons of
separateness are increasingly meaningless. Our species
will truly be free when it is able to abandon the symbols
that perpetuate its divisions The many tribes no longer
need their special banners and bunting except as family
talismans put away for memory
I do not participate in flag ceremonies or attend
parades in which legions of flags are marched past me
For a few years I was obliged to salute the flag twice a
day during its raising and lowering, and when I was at war
for the flag I dreaded it would swaddle my corpse. I would
not spit on the flag because I don't think a flag is that
important. Why should anyone care if someone burns a
flag or makes love on one?
- michael M c C usker ( july /987)
A lliance for D emocracy
he Alliancefor Democracy is a new movement
that seeks to end the domination of our economy,
our government, our culture, our media and the
environment by large corporations.
T
We have united to examine the ways in which various eco
nomic interests either enhance or harm the health of de
mocracy and we focus on creating basic change.
Bikes & Beyond
End
corporate
rule;
revive
democracy.
Piecemeal reform has been rendered ineffective. We seek
deep systemic alterations to establish economic and politi-
cal democracy.______
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