After the Democratic convention in Denver, crews cleaned up the mess – including about 12,000 American flags of many different sizes. They threw them away.No matter what you think about the American flag, you have to admit that it is a powerful symbol to many – and that for a campaign for President to throw 12,000 flags in the garbage is bound to be interpreted negatively by many people, including even some in the Democratic party. Not everybody sees the American flag as just another piece of cloth. It seems a remarkably stupid move, most charitably interpreted, perhaps, as a stunning tone-deafness to the sensitivities of many patriotic Americans.
Now the Republicans are going to make some hay out of the incident. It seems a worker at Invesco field rescued the flags, and some veterans are going to bring them on-stage at a Republican campaign event in Colorado. Somewhere, someone in the Obama campaign is kicking him or her self right now. Hard.
At the Denver Post, David Harsanyi reports the story, and then wonders what the Democrats were supposed to have done with them. You can almost hear the sneering “They're just some leftover cloth, folks!” Commenters are quick to answer for him – there are, after all, rather a lot of things one might do with some surplus flags. But apparently those things are hard to think of for people of a certain mindset...
Update: A commenter claims that the convention just left the flags at Invesco field, and a Republican-owned company, responsible for cleanup, threw them away. Firstly, even if that were true, the Democratic convention still made the choice to just leave them there, instead of doing something more likely to be interpreted positively. Second, if this claim were true, you'd think it would be in the (many) news stories reporting the incident, and would be the subject of a response from the Obama campaign. It is neither. So until someone can back up this allegation, I'm treating it as business-as-usual smears-and-lies from the fruitcakes and loons on the left. My commenter may well not be one of them, mind you – just a bit more credulous than I am...
The Dems just left them there. The company that was going to toss them in the trash is owned by a Republican. Heh heh heh... Shame on him...
ReplyDeleteEarlier story (and more damning pics) here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.redstate.com/diaries/
redstate/2008/aug/28/mystery-solved
Sad.
Regarding all the banter and angst over these tired flags about to go to the recyclers or trash; I'm glad the Republican's got some good use out of them. It's always good to recycle. Maybe after they are done with them they can place them at the VA cemetery's on the graves of the 4,000 kids that lost their lives in Iraq. That might be a fitting use for them---certainly better than just tossing them out.
ReplyDelete12,000 of them I believe? That would give each kid three...But instead, they'll probably end up on EBay!
But this entire flag thing has me worried. I'm a little worried about the 'air' of super nationalism I see happening now. It's a little creepy, all this militarization of our society and super nationalism. Heck, some are starting to make me feel guilty because I don't wear a little American flag pin on my lapel. Why? Why should I have to do that. Does it mean I don't love my country as much as someone that wears a flag pin? Or is it secret code for a certain way of thinking? Here's an idea. Maybe the Progressives can have their flag pins blowing to the left, and the Neo-Cons can have theirs blowing to the right! Yeah, that should do it.
I'm starting to think that these days America just might be moving a little TOO FAR to the right for it's own good. Too far left OR right is not a good thing, and I'm not sure how many of us see all the changes that are very slowly sneaking up on us in America now.
Here's another thing I find pretty creepy, just one example, but there are many; I find the new euphemisms our government is using to be extremely upsetting. I mean, if there is already a word for something, and your philosophy requires that you must find it necessary to 'rename' it, then you must either be up to no good, or at the very least trying to fool somebody. Torture? Torture is now called "enhanced interrogation technique". Now I know there are plenty of laws on the books against torture, but I haven''t found any yet for "enhanced interrogation techniques", and that bothers me because in the Neo(new) America, if you give something a new name, then apparently you can go ahead and do that 'thing' since there are no laws against your new (neo)thing. And what ever happened to Habeas Corpus? The last time I checked we were all guaranteed that in the U.S. Constitution. Why is that not being honored? Oh, I see, the enemy has been renamed 'enemy combatant'...uh huh...
At the end of my post is the URL to a website that is a list of "things" that have been done, each one of which doesn't seem to amount to much if you casually look at them separately (and they did happen slowly over time). But when you step back, look at the big picture, and lump them all together, well, I hope this gives some food for thought, because I'm afraid we are moving in the direction of fascism in America, and I'm not sure there is any way to stop it.
The corporations now have more rights than the citizens, and they have certainly "bought" the government through their lobbyists. It may very well be that there is really only one political party in America these days---the money party.
Check out these 14 steps and similarities to fascism and see if these links set off the "freedom bell in your head" or not. If not, we'd all better do some thinking on how well America survived and served us well over the last couple of years, and why all of a sudden now it needs changing so much.
It seems to me things used to be pretty good---but now?...
Here's the URL---It's pretty interesting;
http://oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm