Take Back the Flag

You know what annoys me? Yeah, it's hard to believe, but I do get annoyed occasionally. I'm annoyed that some have usurped the label patriot and claimed the flag for themselves.

Here I am, a bed-wetting Liberal, a progressive, a Democrat. And like most B-WL/P/D, I love my country. However, the dirty nasties have caused the word patriot to be almost an epithet to me. When I see someone pounding their chests, proudly proclaiming that they're A PATRIOT (always in caps), they're usually at best misguided ideological neocons, and at worst fascists (literal fascists). All those militiamen stockpiling weapons in the hills of Montana in order to prepare themselves for the armed-combated they know is coming when the black helicopters land and the blue-capped jack-booted One Worldists take over America call themselves "patriots", too.

Dick Cheney is a "patriot."

Et Cetera.

When I see a flag flying outside a home or from a car window I think the same thing, something like, "lookout, there's a Right Wing thug." Fairly or unfairly, this is what I think. Therefore, I feel that I can't fly a flag, lest some thing that I'm "one of them."

Now, this may be my problem, not the neocon's problem. After all, who cares if many associate flag-waving or "patriotism" with mind-numbing 100% agreement with this current administration? And actually, if more Liberals put flags on their cars and bandied about the word "patriot" when describing their personal ethos maybe we would reclaim the word and the flag from those that would paint us as America-hating Commies.

Point taken.

It wasn't always this way, however. I grew up in a very progressive village, and everyone put the flag up on Flag Day, The Fourth of July, Veteran's Day, and Memorial Day. We'd have big Memorial Day parades, where us kids would decorate our bikes with red, white, and blue crepe paper. We said the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag every morning in school. We watched "A Bicentennial Minute" on TV between Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley.

Et Cetera.

I blame Ronald Reagan. The same man that attempted to make Liberal a dirty word succeeded in claiming Patriotism and The Flag for The Right.

But then again, I like to blame Reagan for almost everything. Five sticks of gum in the pack instead of seven? Reagan.