Random Thoughts

April 2, 2003

Capture the Flag

Recently, I saw a man and his young son down at the post office, waving American flags and signs at people going by on the street.
It must be someone demonstrating in support of the war, I thought, because you don‘t usually see anti-war protesters waving the flag.
But in fact, Bob and Patrick were waving their flags on behalf of the peace movement. The younger of the two had a sign which read, “War is Unhealthy for Children and Other Living Things.“
Good for them. Whether or not you agree with their viewpoint, they were expressing the fact that the American flag stands first and foremost for the right to free speech. Freedom of speech is the 1st Amendment in the Constitution, and without it, we would have no freedoms whatsoever.
Their example made me think, why don‘t more antiwar protesters wave the flag? Why weren‘t there a sea of flags moving down the streets of New York and San Francisco in the recent demonstrations?
Usually, when you see a picture of an American flag in a protest, it‘s of someone burning it overseas.
During the Vietnam War protests, the U.S. flag was disrespected by protesters because it was seen as a symbol of the federal government. That legacy lives on to this day among protesters, with the exception of a few “politically incorrect“ types.
It‘s unfortunate because the American flag belongs first and foremost to the people of our country, and not just to warmongers or whatever presidential administration happens to be in power at the moment.
The American flag wasn‘t designed by a federal bureaucracy; it was created by common people and rebels.
According to legend, our first flag was created for American revolutionaries by Betsy Ross, a flag-maker from Philadelphia. General George Washington and a committee stopped by her home in June, 1776 with a design. Washington wanted six-pointed stars, but Ross persuaded him to accept those with five points. The flag‘s red, white and blue color scheme is the same as that of the Union Jack of the British mother country. The stripes may have been borrowed from the flag of the British East India Company, a nasty example of the first global corporation.
If you want to get a major lump in your throat, visit the original Star Spangled Banner at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. The shotworn Bannner is the size of a billboard, as elegant in its rough tenor as the side of a barn. It was erected on a huge pole on a hill over Baltimore harbor to taunt a huge host of British warships during the War of 1812. Francis Scott Key, held captive on one of those ships, wrote his famous anthem after seeing the flag persevere “through the rocket‘s red glare“ after a long night of bombardment on the city. Visiting the Star Spangled Banner is always a stunning event -- spiritually, it is as close to a holy object as you can get in a democracy -- and it always reminds me of all the good things our country stands for.
When anti-war protesters reject the flag, they surrender its symbolic power to right-wing flag-waving types who are always first in line to advocate the end of free speech -- the very thing the flag stands for (the Dixie Chicks can give you an earful on this subject).
People who support peace in America should wave the flag vigorously to point out that they own the flag too, and cherish its protection of thought and speech.
Obviously, too much flag-waving is a bad thing. When everyone‘s waving a flag like mad, you get a militaristic nationalism. You get the Nuremburg rallies of 1938 with their searchlights piercing the sky and the groupthink of the Hitler Youth.
But that only happens when the people of a nation wave their flags in the same direction dictated by the government. There‘s no such chance of that in our country where “Dis-united We Stand“ means support for every viewpoint, ethnicity, religion and color.
Displaying the flag reminds us that no matter what our views are, we are all united as Americans through our professed love of freedom. The gravity of the flag reminds us that we have a responsibility as citizens to approach issues soberly and with a sense of care. And when every viewpoint displays the flag, no single viewpoint can use it as a symbolic weapon to suppress dissent.
I would never tell anyone to be proud of the flag -- that‘s something that should spring from your own heart. But if you can‘t get behind the American flag and what it stands for, you probably aren‘t standing behind anything.