flagellation

Flag Day, 2020. 

Whose flag is it, anyway? It's not yours, despite what you think and do and say. It's not mine either. It's ours. During the Sixties, the right wing appropriated the flag for its own purposes. They felt and acted as if they had the final say on what the flag, and patriotism, and respect for the flag, meant. A flag at an antiwar march? They scorned it, even though that is precisely what soldiers were dying for: the right to protest, even revolt, if you want to go back to 1776 and the Founding Fathers and Mothers. So the flag was "owned" and appropriated. 

To extend the line of thought, a patriot was only somebody who agreed with my moral, or immoral, stance. That's not how the Supreme Court saw it. However heinous and nauseating it may be, even flag burning is protected. We treasure free speech so much under our Constitution we even allow hateful and disgusting expressions of speech. (Most countries are not that free.) The Love It or Leave It crowd said (and says), my ("patriotic") way or the highway. Incidentally, our family car had a bumpersticker that barked that "get out if you don't like it" command. (Translation: this viewpoint and no other. Sounds dictatorial to me.) It's convenient to say I did not argue the point with my father, a WWII veteran, but not arguing the point doesn't sound like me. 

The other day, I saw, and heard, a souped-up pickup with a large American flag, on a pole, in the truck bed, go roaring by. And I mean roaring. An angry metallic throat gargle that yelled, Out of my way! Do I know that person's politics? I do not. I can guess. I'll lay odds.

Nothing much has changed.

In the Sixties, traditionalists thought the wearing of flag bandannas or halter tops by "hippies" (an utterly meaningless word then and now) or bikers was sartorially blasphemous. But it was okay if it was a country club dress or hat or handbag, or someone dolled up in an Uncle Sam suit.

My older brother, whose number in the draft lottery was 314, would say, regarding ubiquitous flaggery, "Gee, I get the point. We're not in Canada. I know where we are."

I can think of two times when we took a breath and rallied around Old Glory as one nation: JFK's assassination on November 22, 1963, and on and after 9/11.

Yes, we did it on other occasions in my lifetime, but not with the same unanimity, power, solemnity, and silence.

Silence.

No civic debate or discourse for the moment.

Silence.

For now.

And looking down the hill and up the hill on my street that September, I saw every house displaying a rippling flag in the crisp morning sun. Even our house, with it's brand-new edition, freshly unfurled.