Flag Day is Saturday and it got me thinking how the meaning has evolved over the years. People like my mother who lived through World War II tend to have a more unquestioning passionate love for the flag than those of us who came afterward. We went through a period where burning the flag became both a Constitutional and emotional issue. The horrific events of 9/11 caused most Americans to rally around the flag again. In those darkest moments, it seemed as if the flag was all we had to fight back.
There are always those who are ready to profit from the flag. We have gone from flag-burning to flag-proselytizing. It is a prominent part of a line of Ralph Lauren sportswear. I am not sure what to make of the lapel pins, which have become mandatory for politicians. When it became an issue that Barack Obama was not wearing a flag pin, he caved and now sports one. I tuned in to the Fox Network’s baseball game of the week and the pre-game anchors actually bragged about the shiny new pins they were wearing on camera. In this context, what does such a display of patriotism mean? Is there more than a whiff of fascism about it?
If the flag is to truly represent America, than it must represent all things American, the bad with the good. Love of the flag does not mean a citizen must put blinders on when things go on that shame our country. Yet some persist in blind patriotism. They are the "love it or leave it" crowd that equate any criticism of America with disloyalty. You can read some of their letters in our Letters to the Editor section.
Yes, there are some on the far left who are infected by an anti-American virus handed down from the 1960s. They think all use of American power is wrong, our two-party system is corrupt and we are the main cause of violence and injustice in the world. They willfully misread history, yet there is much wrong with America today that tarnishes the flag.
No matter how we try to justify it, the use of torture by our government, the deceitful policies that got us involved in invading Iraq, the influence of lobbyists that forces government to serve themselves rather than its people, all of this has left a smudge on our flag as surely as if some protester had tried to burn it. Whether this dark epoch is temporary or not depends on how we react to this outrage on our democracy.
The men and women in the Bush administration who mislead us into war are getting ready to be welcomed back to the university campuses for cushy lecturing jobs. Can we ever listen to Condi Rice again without slapping a lie detector cuff on her wrist? Would you want Dick Cheney to speak at your children’s graduation ceremony? Who can visit the future Bush Library without a can of room deodorant to chase the odor of those lies?
These "patriots," these men and women of this administration, were quick to don the flag lapel pin. It turns out they weren’t showing their love of the flag but their disdain for all the great things for which it stands. We cannot put them all in jail, but we can demand they stop desecrating our flag. It turns out this was an administration of faux patriots, people who received favors from their fathers to avoid serving in war, people who manipulated the deferment system and then ragged about their opponents’ lack of patriotism.
No political party has a monopoly on patriotism. How we look at American history depends on our own background and experience, but there is no one definition of patriotism. Our two presidential candidates prove that point. The American unity theme of Obama is one rooted in love of country. No one can question the patriotism of John McCain.
Despite the corporate cheapening of the flag and the disrespect shown it by America haters or those on the right, who sell love of country like snake oil, our flag still embodies the best of our hopes and dreams.
