Your Progressive Opposition in Action (Chris Floyd on Hillary)

Your Progressive Opposition in Action

Tuesday, 06 December 2005

Hillary Clinton is co-sponsoring a bill with Utah Republican Bob Bennett that will make it a crime to "desecrate" a U.S. flag. (The word "desecration" should always be put in quotes in this context – because the American flag is not a sacred object, for God's sake! It's a national emblem, not a religious relic.) The law would ban protestors from "intimidating any person by burning the flag, lighting someone else's flag or <'>desecrating<'> the flag on federal property." Clinton "has compared the act of flag-burning to burning a cross."

A few questions raised by this interesting story:

When in the entire course of American history has a flag-burning protestor ever dragged someone from their house and lynched them, or burned down a church, or driven a family from their home, or proclaimed the God-ordained superiority of their race – and how could anyone with half a brain who was not shamelessly pandering to the worst instincts and most ignorant prejudices of the electorate in order to hoist themselves up the greasy pole of power make such an odious and frankly stupid comparison?

Next question: What exactly is the point of Democratic "leaders" who eagerly embrace right-wing policies like aggressive war, the destruction of the welfare system (thanks, Bill!), corporate deregulation, capital punishment (which was vastly expanded under Bill), and, in this case, utterly pointless lunatic fringe notions that address non-existent problems in the most ham-handed, un-Constitutional way?

Final question: "For what will it profit a woman if she gains the whole world, and loses her own soul?"


http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=322&Itemid=1

Is burning the cross part of the ritual when you have to discard an old one? Then they are not the same or even comparable.

The fact is, burning a flag is how one is supposed to be properly disposed. Just as hanging one upside-down is not disrespectful, but has a specific meaning.

Why the hell didn't everyone pay attention to these rules enough for them to be ingrained in the American landscape? They enjoy the patriotism, but don't even bother to understand the rules? All too typically American.

Skilled fascists at least learn the damned rules...pomp, pageantry, and ritual are part and parcel to group-think.

Man I am sooo tired of this fake patriotism in the 21st Century.