www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/09/18/flag/index.html -> dir.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/09/18/flag/index.html
I just wonder if I can take it back from the creeps who've waved it all my life. By King Kaufman - - - - - - - - - - September 18, 2001 | I'm wrestling with the American flag. It's everywhere now: tiny ones riffling on car antennas, medium ones waving from porches, giant ones yawning from cranes. Every Old Navy flag shirt ever bought has been pulled out of the drawer this week, and Stars and Stripes 'do rags are all the rage. I don't have a flag, and they're hard to come by these days anyway -- not that I've tried to get one. And if I had one, I can't figure out if I'd fly it or not. See, Old Glory and I, we go way back, and we've had our problems. For most of my life, the American flag has been the cultural property of people I can't stand: right-wingers, jingoists, know-nothing zealots. It's something that hypocritical politicians wrap themselves in. It's something that certain legislators would make it a crime to burn -- a position that's an assault on the very freedom that the flag represents. It was everywhere then, too, on porches and car antennas and over the left breast of every uniformed athlete, all in support of a war I and many others thought to be immoral. Seeing it stirs something in me, even when I'm mad at it, or disagree with those who wave it. I am, after all, an American, and despite being opposed to every single military adventure this nation has undertaken in my lifetime, I'm a patriotic one at that. It's about loving this country's crazy cultural stew -- that "melting pot" that we give ourselves more credit for than we should, but that really does exist. For me, statements like "America right or wrong" or "America: Love it or leave it," a chestnut from my childhood, are the antithesis of what this country is all about. And those are the sentiments that the flag has come, over many years, to represent for me. So you'll be surprised to hear that I have an American flag shirt, and maybe surprised to hear that I sometimes wear it -- without irony! First of all, it's a hell of a shirt since, after all, it's a Grand Old Flag. Not for me the pretentious Europhile weenieness that sometimes plagues my fellow middle-class American white boys. I'm a proud son of the country that's produced Bart Simpson and Ambrose Bierce, Robert Johnson and Abe Lincoln, Michael Jordan and Doc Holliday. There are two kinds of patriots: The "God Bless America" kind and the "This Land Is Your Land" kind. On the surface, the songs sound similar: simple melodies with lyrics about America's natural beauty, the mountains and deserts and "oceans white with foam" in one; But that's only because we don't sing all the verses that Woody Guthrie wrote in his song, an answer to "God Bless America," which he hated for its sentimentality and dumb, blind devotion. These things, as much as our culture, our national personality, our country's physical magnificence, are what the flag represents to me. While I'm not quite a pacifist, I have a pretty simple, even simplistic view of war: You don't fight unless you've been attacked. So now that this country has been attacked, I agree with the vast majority that some sort of military response is warranted. This is a new feeling for me, this feeling that we're the good guys and we're fighting the bad guys. It makes sense that I'd want to fly the good guys' flag, but that flag comes wrapped around a lot of baggage. Sound Off Send us a 44 Letter to the Editor shim 45 salon | 46 search | 47 premium | 48 tabletalk | 49 the WELL | 50 about salon | 51 report error | 52 about the directory shim Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited Copyright 2003 Salon Media Group, Inc.
|
http://csua.com/feed/