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Yesterday
I saw a 3 x 4 inch flag decal up in the back window of a pickup truck. on the drivers side.
The flag was upside-down.
That hit me very hard.
The upside-down flag is the universal distress call.
Here was a good ol' boy whose flag told me that he's an American who is distressed about what's going on in this country.
The ultra-right wingers who are attempting to hi-jack this nation, its values & its symbols -- have been trying to rally all people to a "United We Stand" - as if any divergence of opinion are criminal.
Did you notice that the number of people displaying flags on their cars has petered down?
Flag Day is Friday June 14th.
Think about displaying an upside-down flag.
Those flag decals are everywhere.
I'm attaching a small graphic you can use in your emails.
I also recommend  http://www.patrioticon.org/patriotic-downloads.htm
You can copy an icon into Paint as a bitmap file .bmp & then flip it.
(Windows. Accessories. Paint. Image. Flip/Rotate)
I'm going to put this flag into my email signature.
Publicuss
 e-mail:: publicuss@hotmail.com
 Homepage:: http://
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Flag Day
John Prine said it almost 30 years ago.
http://clients.loudeye.com/imc/la/flagdecal.ram
MaoTzu
It's a mistake to play into the trap of the fascist right by letting them seize the symbols of the country and declare anyone who disagrees with them a traitor. It is THEY who are the traitors to the ideals and principles that the country's institutions and symbols are supposed to stand for. Don't burn the flag! Take it back from the fascists and make it a proud emblem of freedom from oppression!
When the revolution happens here, it will be red, white, and blue, and American as apple pie.
anon
While I'm sure you're sincere in your beliefs. And I like the idea of turning it over to sybolize distress.
The fact remains that from the original 13 stars and stripes which represented European domination of a part of Northamerica, to the last star added in 1960 (Hawaii), that the ensign of the United States of America and it's history celibrates, Genocide, War, Invasion,and Exploitation.
I mean seriously which of the over 25 US Flags would you like to take back and call your own?
Every star and stripe on the rag stands for territory that was stolen from native people, other soverign countries, or both.
State nationalism such as people like Bush, Sharon and Hitler have called for seems to lead to nothing but war and poverty and grief. I say down with it!
MaoTzu
Why do you let the worst things about a country define it for you? Why not the best? To you, America is about the genocide of the native inhabitants, slavery, imperial arrogance, napalm. And sure, yes, all those things happened. But why is that the sole definition of "America"?
To me, America is about Martin Luther King, Fanny Lou Hamer, the Freedom Riders, Mark Twain and his rapier wit, Aldo Leopold and his land ethic, the majestic verse of Walt Whitman, the lyrical beauty of Gary Snyder. It's about the Sierras and the Rockies. It's about Abbie Hoffman in his prime, throwing money at the Pharisees in the Temple of Greed. It's about a kind of rough and ready egalitarianism that mocks all things fake and pretentious, that gives the raspberry to the high falutin', the high-and-mighty would-be empire builders of this world, a freethinking, optimistic, rebel spirit present in all our greatest writers, poets, artists, thinkers. It's Thomas Jefferson when he said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure."
America is also about all the unique and diverse cultures and cuisines that make it home, all the different landscapes and traditions. Cajuns in Louisiana, the Anishinabe in Minnesota and their wild rice that they gather in canoes. It's about the proud Lakota people and their sacred Black Hills. The Hassidic Jews in New York and their colorful local traditions. The Amish in Pennsylvania and their venerable old ways. John Steinbeck, Upton Sinclair, Howard Zinn, Woody Guthrie, the Okies. All these and more.
Whereas you define America by all you don't like and reject, I define it by what I like and what I want to protect from the ravages of hypercapitalism and imperialism, and make strong and vibrant. Your approach is all negative. You will wind up a very bitter person if you don't change your perspective.
anon
I wasn't defineing America I thought we were talking about the flag? I was talking about the flag. Specificly about the flag as a symbol of the government of the United States, not of the people. And as a symbol of the US State, it stands for, oppresion, slavery, class oppresion, unjust war, hegemony, imperialism, racism, sexism, nationalism, and all the other isms that the government of the united states uses to keep the working class fighting among ourselves.
The stars and stripes do not represent the people of the united states. We need our own flag!
MaoTzu
Mao Tzu: your approach reveals a dangerous oversimplification. The "nation-state" is supposed to represent "the people." Of course, too often it doesn't. But are we to reject it whole cloth, throw out the baby with the bathwater, or should we be more discriminating? Afterall, the most retrograde rightwing interests are champions at railing against "the government." But if "government" includes everything from CCC to DOD to EPA to the local pound, everything from college scholarships to Cobra helicopters, don't we have to have a little more nuanced definition of what exactly it is we like and dislike? "The state" is too amorphous a term. We should pin it down more precisely: For example, we don't like unaccountability, citing specific examples. We don't like authoritarianism, violence, and exploitation, once again citing specific examples, etc.
It seems like the nation-state has to evolve into something radically different and better. We're on the road. It's up to us to take it where we want it to go. That will require great care and judicious definition of our goals and values. Wielding a battle axe and bludgeoning away at the symbols that Americans consider theirs (perhaps naively, you might claim) is a very blunt and destructive approach that doesn't get us there at all. Maybe your heart is in the right place, but your approach is fatally flawed.
anon
I'm sick to death of hearing that "we" need to reclaim/take back the flag from right-wingers, fascists, whoever. The people I hear say that call themselves "liberals" and desperately want to prove that they are just at "patriotic" as the next person. As far as I'm concerned, it's really about their own psychological fear of challenging those in power (it might make you uncomfortable!), the need to feel they "belong" at the expense of having any real political principles, and a refusal to examine what's really wrong with this country and what it would really take to change it. Instead of dealing with the real issues, they expend their energy in a fight over tired-old symbols that have too much negative baggage (as Mao Tzu has pointed out) and "make nice" about the important stuff. Defining America by what is right and good about it is well and fine so far as it goes, but focussing only on the good leaves a lot of U.S. instigated and perpetuated social injustice and misery in the world. That's a cop-out.
EG
Islamic Republic News Agency
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