Most people are probably aware that today is Flag Day in the United States. It commemorates the official adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777, by resolution of the Second Continental Congress.
That said, I’d like to add a note about our mainstream media and their reporting about inverted US flags. Those flags are the symbol of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, they report, as though inverted flags are the new and exclusive symbol of rioters and criminals. I’ve yet to see or hear a reporter add that an inverted flag is a symbol of distress and is designated as such in the official US Flag Code. I don’t like the way it’s being used these days but I worry that a lot of uninformed citizens — and reporters, apparently — think inverted flags are a new symbol of violence and hate dreamed up by the far right. I object, strenuously. It’s not their flag or their symbol. It’s my flag. It’s our flag. And it has been since 1777.
So there. I may not have adequately explained my rather nebulous concern, but I tried.
Have a great weekend, everyone. And fly your flags proudly, right side up.
Seems like I’ve always known that the upside-down flag is an unofficial symbol of distress. That said, there’s no denying that it was used in the January 6 violent attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power and even before that.. I fully expect that Christian nationalists will continue to use it to symbolize their cause. I really can’t fault journalists for reporting when they do. Meantime, my flag is flying, right-side up like yours Happy flag day, Susan.
I don’t object to when journalists report it; I object to how they report it — as though it’s something just recently dreamed up by the insurrectionists. Maybe schools just don’t teach anything about the flag code anymore. Anyway, happy Flag Day to you too, Jim.
You did a pretty good job of explaining your nebulous concern. My concerns are similar, maybe coming from a slightly different perspective. I’ve never been a flag waver, as I’m not into symbols that much. That, and those most prone to flying flags and loudly proclaiming various things about the American flag and its sacredness, saluting it, worshiping it, chastising anyone who doesn’t behave likewise, tend to be far-right politically, not particularly well-informed, simplistic in their thinking, and thus antithetical to a lot of what I tend to believe politically.
I suppose the main thing I believe about these folks is that they tend to confuse our flag with our actual country. That they are so intrinsically linked that the flag is a literal extension of America. That’s why they get so incensed by people who protest things the government does by burning a flag. It’s why Colin Kaepernick so angers them by simply silently, and non-violently taking a knee in protest against police brutality aimed especially at black people.
“Disrespecting” the flag is tantamount to heinous acts of homicide in their minds. It’s just about the worst crime you can commit as an American, apparently. Never mind that the flag is, after all just a piece of colored cloth. If I had been called to military service and asked to defend the U.S. against real aggression and/or invasion I would put my life on the line, no question. But if some battlefield commander ordered me to risk near certain death just to go rescue a flag perched on some hilltop surrounded by the enemy, I’d have to say that was ludicrously out of the question. I’d get court-martialed, but a piece of cloth which at that point was serving no real military purpose, would not be worth my life.
So, back to the insurrectionists. For these folks, symbols are highly meaningful. They really do confuse symbols with the things they represent. It’s likely due to a fundamentalist religious upbringing many of them had, as it is the same kind of mindset. And they are very possessive and protective of their symbols. They like to create secret codes and meanings with symbols that only the folks in their little club or cult knows the true meaning of. That’s one of the ways they think they can operate “secretly” out in the open and no one but them knows what its all about.
Thus we come to the upside down flag. Maybe this is restating the obvious, but they decided to co-opt the upside down flag signal of distress for two reasons. For most of the public it does mean that the flag flyer is signaling distress and thus a need for assistance. But to their in-group, the more secret meaning, built on the distress meaning, was that the country was in grave danger because of the perceived “stolen election” and this flag was their symbol to the rest of the “informed” followers out there that they were there to rescue the country from disaster.
Sorry to be so verbose and possibly beating a dead horse to death, again!
Well I was born back when taking a hill and planting the flag really meant something to those involved. And to this day I do resent the flag being misused and/or abused. And I take offense at people who disrespect the flag that represents their freedom to disrespect the flag (ie, Kaepernick). I also resent that I now hesitate to even display a flag for fear I will be thought an extremist, a member of the far right, or perhaps an immigrant (illegal!) trying much too hard to fit in. But this is a far different world from the one I grew up in, so generally I just keep my head down and my mouth shut, grateful that I’m still around to observe all this.
No need to apologize for verbosity. That’s why this comment section is here.
Same thing happened down here when the stroppy trade unionists subverted the Eureka flag to their cause. Created quite a lot of ill will then; but unhappily there seems to’ve been a kind of giant shrug, since.
“On 30 November 1854 miners from Ballarat in Victoria swore an oath to the Southern Cross flag at Bakery Hill and built a stockade at the nearby Eureka diggings. They were unhappy with the way the colonial government had been running the goldfields. Early on 3 December 1854 government troops attacked the stockade, and at least 22 miners and five soldiers were killed. Despite the defeat of the miners at the stockade, the events at Eureka later led to changes in how people were governed as well as people’s attitudes towards democracy and ‘a fair go’.”
I suppose I’m pretty old-fashioned in my thinking. That’s probably why we octogenarians are generally dissed by the younger generations. We’ve become relics, utterly irrelevant except, perhaps, to historians and, soon enough, anthropologists.
Nono, Colorado: surely we will be FASCINATING to anthropologists ? – oh, except that I’m leaving my body to science .. [grin]
Good idea, but I don’t think science would want mine. Too many missing parts.
Soon after World War II in 1948 I was in the Boy Scouts and at that time the BSA was more of a military organization we practice a coat of arms and in and studied our handbook our official BSA handbook included a chapter on flag etiquette as well as the different order arms right shoulder arms Etc it was a different world. Pardon The context of my Verbage since I am using text to speech I mean speech to text As I am In a hospital bed right now But not Not to worry. It was a more tolerant world at least in my case I was raised in a small South Texas City in a very poor family so I had black and brown friends for all of my childhood in fact one of my the mother of one of my brown friends taught us how to warm tortillas on the top of the gas stove make the best burritos I ever had I’m off topic. I think the only thing I can add to what has already been said is that people are more intolerant and more ignorant and less empathetic today then I have ever seen it anywhere even in other countries or they have a good reason to be disappointed
I agree with you. When I was a kid they had the Kiwanis Junior Police at every school and those kids learned all about flag etiquette. I was a Brownie for a while, sort of a baby Girl Scout. And we learn flag etiquette too. Plus there was an American flag in every classroom and we said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. These days that’s probably against the law or something.
I’m really sorry to hear about the hospital bed. You get out of there ASAP, okay?
I just reread what I wrote previously and I failed to emphasize ignorance pure ignorance is rampant today
And the worst thing about that is that it’s willful ignorance. That’s the most dangerous kind.
I don’t know about willful I think it’s more stupid than anything not being taught how to think early and being given things to memorize is more like education today it seems to me but anyway for sure ignorant and stupid
I guess I’m still trying (and admittedly failing) to be an optimist. Ignorance can be remediated. But you can’t fix stupid.