Should prog/libs reclaim the flag? (1 Viewer)

[GMRfellowtraveller]

Seems to be that the majority of people who ‘proudly’ wave the US flag represent a narrow slice of the American cultural pie
Southern Heritage types, Insurrectionists, xenophobes - none of those are American cultural ideas

[for argument’s sake, I’m thinking ‘American Culture’ as something that started coalescing around WW1 and quickened during the Voting Rights Act]

At the very least, it seems like that flag should represent an panoply of ideas instead of the irreconcilable contradictions it projects now

And if ‘yes, progs/libs should reclaim’, what form should that take?

 

[DaveXA]

Seems to be that the majority of people who ‘proudly’ wave the US flag represent a narrow slice of the American cultural pie
Southern Heritage types, Insurrectionists, xenophobes - none of those are American cultural ideas

[for argument’s sake, I’m thinking ‘American Culture’ as something that started coalescing around WW1 and quickened during the Voting Rights Act]

At the very least, it seems like that flag should represent an panoply of ideas instead of the irreconcilable contradictions it projects now

And if ‘yes, progs/libs should reclaim’, what form should that take?

By reclaiming, meaning a whole new flag, or ascribing new meanings to the current one?

 

[samiam5211]

I think that the LGBTQ community should adopt the confederate flag. Then after about 20 or 30 years or so when the ancestors of the confederacy start to associate it with queers go back to the rainbow.

 

[DaveXA]

I think that the LGBTQ community should adopt the confederate flag. Then after about 20 or 30 years or so when the ancestors of the confederacy start to associate it with queers go back to the rainbow.

What...and LGBTQ risk being called racists? But hey, if they can pull it off, I'm all for it.

To clarify, I mean pull off making the flag their symbol. That would be pretty funny imo.

As for the US flag, we're a free country. You can make it mean whatever you want to.

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

By reclaiming, meaning a whole new flag, or ascribing new meanings to the current one?

Keep the flag just make it mean what it says

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

I think that the LGBTQ community should adopt the confederate flag. Then after about 20 or 30 years or so when the ancestors of the confederacy start to associate it with queers go back to the rainbow.

I have a friend from grad school - just as fabulous as he can be - he’s lived in LA since school, but is from a tiny West Virginia town
He and his husband decided to buy/renovate a noted building in this very much dying town
- they got about 3/4 the way done before road block after road block made them pause
They’re going back to LA to take a breath and have their lawyer do his job
I’ll run your idea by him

 

[SystemShock]

Rather strange question, and rather strange way of defining "American culture".

Regardless, if libs/progs want to "reclaim" something that is already theirs, they simply have to wave it themselves, instead of creating other flags or symbols to wave or pin to your lapel for your cause du jour.

Anecdote time:
When I was a freshman in college (1984), I saw this piece on the news about a college in NYC (pretty sure it was there) that placed Old Glory on the floor of the lobby of their main building. Not a carpet that looked like a flag, but an actual flag. This was obviously a liberal arts college that wanted to make a point about freedom of expression and progressiveness. They had video of 3 students having a conversation standing on it, even wiping their feet on it as they talked. Even though at the time I had yet to embrace the U.S. as my home, it upset me a great deal, and thought to myself, if anyone does that in MX with La Tricolor, they would be lynched, and no judge would put anyone in jail.

But you wouldn't expect anything different in a country for which one of its most endeared legends is that of a wounded 15 year old cadet wrapping the flag around him and jumping off the top of a castle to his death into an unreachable part of a forest to prevent the enemy from laying their hands on the flag.

Obviously, no conservative institution would place a U.S. flag in the middle of a hall as a carpet, let alone let anyone stand on it.

And I can guarantee you that wiping your dirty feet on a rainbow flag would cause exponentially more outrage within the lib/prog crowd than wiping your dirty feet on a U.S. flag.

 

[DaveXA]

Yeah, just make the flag a central theme of the party. And really, to some degree, they already do. Every DNC I've ever seen, there was lots of red/white/blue, and plenty of Old Glory.

 

[Saintman2884]

Rather strange question, and rather strange way of defining "American culture".

Regardless, if libs/progs want to "reclaim" something that is already theirs, they simply have to wave it themselves, instead of creating other flags or symbols to wave or pin to your lapel for your cause du jour.

Anecdote time:
When I was a freshman in college (1984), I saw this piece on the news about a college in NYC (pretty sure it was there) that placed Old Glory on the floor of the lobby of their main building. Not a carpet that looked like a flag, but an actual flag. This was obviously a liberal arts college that wanted to make a point about freedom of expression and progressiveness. They had video of 3 students having a conversation standing on it, even wiping their feet on it as they talked. Even though at the time I had yet to embrace the U.S. as my home, it upset me a great deal, and thought to myself, if anyone does that in MX with La Tricolor, they would be lynched, and no judge would put anyone in jail.

But you wouldn't expect anything different in a country for which one of its most endeared legends is that of a wounded 15 year old cadet wrapping the flag around him and jumping off the top of a castle to his death into an unreachable part of a forest to prevent the enemy from laying their hands on the flag.

Obviously, no conservative institution would place a U.S. flag in the middle of a hall as a carpet, let alone let anyone stand on it.

And I can guarantee you that wiping your dirty feet on a rainbow flag would cause exponentially more outrage within the lib/prog crowd than wiping your dirty feet on a U.S. flag.

Did the backstory of one of Mexico's greatest, most hallowed patriotic legends with a 15-year old cadet wrapping himself around Mexican Tri colour flag and jumping off the side of one of Mexico City's main military training academy, Chulpatec (apologize, if misspelled) balconies to an unreachable part of a forest, to protect the integrity, self-respect, and honor of Mexico's National flag.

That occurred during the American army's successful siege, and storming of and capture of Mexico City during the final days of the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, didnt it? I believe most Mexicans revere those brave, honorable young Mexican military cadets who sacrificed their lives in equivalent, romanticized notion Texas historians mythologize the defenders of the Alamo.

Crazy, but perhaps ironic consequence of the Mexican-American War is that it essentially exarscerbated domestic sectionalist tensions between Northern free states and the slave-holding Southern states over the issue of whether slavery would be allowed into the western territories, the political and moral consequences of law enforcement being legally obligated to track down, arrest, and return fugitive slaves hiding out or who'd fled to Northern states and cities to their former owners(1850 Fugitive Slave Act), many prominent Americans, Northerner and Southerners, pretty much saw the conflict as a poison chalice that would eventually tear this nation even further apart. Ulysses S. Grant wrote numerous times in his dairies that Mexico was a rash, impulsive conflict in part because he was a young, junior officer under General Zachary Taylor, sent by President James Polk to the disputed Mexican-US border claimed by Mexico, the Nusces River boundary, in the hopes their presence their would infuriate Mexican nationalists and provoke them into a fight which the expansionist Polk was desperately pushing for as part of his presidential election promises. He toyed with trying to provoke a border war with British over the disputed Oregon border territory but eventually backed off because he and his administration saw getting into a unnecessary war with UK over a mostly meaningless, remote, border dispute might not end in a convincing military victory (although Canada did become a united Confederation of provinces in 1867, the British Foreign Office dictated Canada's foreign policy affairs until end of WWI, which is why even up until the turn of the 20th century, US expansionists periodically proposed invading Canada and conquering it, President Teddy Roosevelt even told German ambassador in discussions about a potential German-American-Japanese alliance IIRC in 1906-07, that invading Canada was still a probable military war games scenario in case of any potential conflict breaking out between US and UK).

 

[brandon]

I thought the conservatives already gave up the flag and replaced it with the blue TRUMP flag and/or the thin blue line desecration.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I was actually thinking about this not long ago

For me though it's not just the flag, the right has co-opted all things patriotic

If someone says "come to my website, it's americanpatriotsfightingforfreedom.com

I can make a pretty good guess about the content, and it's not liberal talking points

 

[Saintamaniac]

Seems to be that the majority of people who ‘proudly’ wave the US flag represent a narrow slice of the American cultural pie
Southern Heritage types, Insurrectionists, xenophobes - none of those are American cultural ideas

[for argument’s sake, I’m thinking ‘American Culture’ as something that started coalescing around WW1 and quickened during the Voting Rights Act]

At the very least, it seems like that flag should represent an panoply of ideas instead of the irreconcilable contradictions it projects now

And if ‘yes, progs/libs should reclaim’, what form should that take?

Prog/Libs don't have to do anything to convince other progs/libs of their love for the country and patriotism for which the flag represents. They only have to convince republicans so simply lying about about it should do the trick. They tend to be severely receptive to lies anyway.

 

[wardorican]

This just seems weird to me. Conservatives don't own patriotism. They try to act like it, but they don't.

 

[samiam5211]

This just seems weird to me. Conservatives don't own patriotism. They try to act like it, but they don't.

The own the "America is great no matter what" wing of patriotism though. To many of them, that is the only true patriotism, which is actually nationalism, but don't try to tell them there is a difference.

 

[Farb]

Is this all the unity I kept hearing about?
It seems to me if two distinct political classes have different meaning for the flag of their country, then the country is in pretty bad shape. JMHO of course.

 

[JLL]

Seems to be that the majority of people who ‘proudly’ wave the US flag represent a narrow slice of the American cultural pie
Southern Heritage types, Insurrectionists, xenophobes - none of those are American cultural ideas

[for argument’s sake, I’m thinking ‘American Culture’ as something that started coalescing around WW1 and quickened during the Voting Rights Act]

At the very least, it seems like that flag should represent an panoply of ideas instead of the irreconcilable contradictions it projects now

And if ‘yes, progs/libs should reclaim’, what form should that take?

A progressive idea would be no flag at all. Just the imagining of one. That way no one could be tied to the racist past or present, or offend anyone who would definitely be offended, by symbols or lack of sympathy, empathy or representation. Just have an empty flag pole or stick to proudly wave back and forth imagining what you want represented. Better yet if someone is holding this flag you see nothing but them, proudly representing the progressive idea that change is constant, and there are no constants only change.

 

[wardorican]

Seems to be that the majority of people who ‘proudly’ wave the US flag represent a narrow slice of the American cultural pie
Southern Heritage types, Insurrectionists, xenophobes - none of those are American cultural ideas

[for argument’s sake, I’m thinking ‘American Culture’ as something that started coalescing around WW1 and quickened during the Voting Rights Act]

At the very least, it seems like that flag should represent an panoply of ideas instead of the irreconcilable contradictions it projects now

And if ‘yes, progs/libs should reclaim’, what form should that take?

Oh, I forgot something... have you ever been to Maryland?

Flags EVERYWHERE. Pretty blue state.

 

[Roofgardener]

I normally associate American Progressives/Liberals with burning of the flag. I don't think we should encourage them to wrap themselves in the flag instead. They might revert to type and set fire to it. And then.. well.. trips to casualty.... disfiguring burns.. it would all get messy ?