The American flag: To some it’s Old Glory. To others it’s a MAGA hat on a stick.
When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross
Very accurate. These people have coopted the American flag like the Nazis coopted the swastika. It had an original purpose and meaning, but when you see only Nazis waving it around it becomes a Nazi flag.
The idea of the “Great American State Fair” and the fact we were hitting 250, sounded like it’d be a great way to celebrate. I read about some of the original plans and what the Smithsonian was working on and it really felt like a tribute to us, the people.
But now, I’ve had zero desire to celebrate anything that’s been going on, and it’s just felt like a damper on everything. What about the US is there to celebrate? I know people can say “well, acktually, compared to Burma….”, but that’s not the point. I also know we weren’t at the top, but we’ve fallen so far, so quickly.
Totally agree. We’re the most prosperous country in the world but we basically fail all social health markers. Literacy rates, quality of healthcare, infrastructure, deaths during child birth…all these are inferior to many European countries with a fraction of our GDP. It’s shameful. We can and should do better.
The major takeaway: wealth does not equal a good life.
When you remove the top 10% of earners, the average American wage drops to something like $35-40k. America may be the most prosperous country in the world, but it’s only going to a few people.
Wealth helps a lot. What doesn’t help is having a few absolutely insanely wealthy people to offset hundreds of millions of poor people.
The major takeaway: wealth does not equal a good life.
Yeah you misunderstand. The actual individual people with the wealth are doing just fine in all of those categories.
RIP United States of America. 1776 - 2016
I vote 2010 with Citizens United decision. Koch Brothers and TP USA immediately followed. Birther movement accelerated. Tea party astroturfing, etc.
Same, citizens united was the final nail in the coffin
We truly died between Reagan and Clinton. We’re just stuck in hell now
2001 is close enough for 225.
Letting Bush baby take the election was the end for me. And the first presidential election I voted in too. Felt good to elect Obama even if he didn’t exactly do what we all hoped he would. But then the backlash has been insane.
Not putting Nixon in jail was also a mistake, but so was letting the south end reconstruction and basically get away with the killing of Lincoln.
The more USA flags I see someone has on their house or car, the more likely I want to avoid them.
When we were looking for a house, there were a few we nixed because of thin blue line flags and just excessive US flags being displayed overall in the neighborhood.
I’ve been thinking of putting one up to try and blend in with the crazies, I live in a red county, but I can’t bring myself to do it.
Houses, businesses and vehicles with American flags on them or part of their decor, people with American flag clothes/hats will get the side eye from me forevermore. It’s pretty much become a shithead MAGA dogwhistle.
I wear and have the flag out because maga do not use our flag. They fuck it up by putting trumps name on it or black flag with blue lines etc etc.
Liberals should take the flag back. It’s theirs too.
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Seeing an American flag, I just roll my eyes and move on (for a while now I’ve felt that our overuse of the flag–especially for home decor–is tacky, but as the article demonstrates, everyone has their own motivations for flying it). But “250 celebration” decor? Major stinkeye. I’ve actively avoided businesses and neighbors that post this nonsense.
II used to be very patriotic and naive. Thinking that the flag represented a desire to be the greatest country. Dreams fulfilled, melting pot, helping one’s neighbors, constant progression (albeit too slowly even when it did). I traveled to a few countries, got older, more educated. Realized what the flag meant to me wasn’t how it was being used. I still struggle with what I thought the country and patriotism stood for but I most certainly negatively judge most displays I see anymore and will also avoid businesses and neighbors that are proudly supporting this shit show of a country.
When I see an American Flag, I immediately think “This fucking redneck is going to shoot my trans ass and claim I was trying to indoctrinate his kids.”
Similar to how Germans (used to) view private German flag display. Nationalism is a poison. PS: Well nothing wrong with being proud in your country’s achievements, but that blind pride and flag waving is a mindset based on confrontation, not solidarity with other countries.
My husband is German and has always found the crazy flag waving patriotism of the US odd. I never really understood his position until the last few years. Having been raised in the US, all of that seemed completely normal to me, but now I view it very differently.
Do other countries not have citizens flying their national flag? To my anecdotal knowledge, Italians, Mexicans, many South Americans are extremely proud. In my Brazil-American majority neighborhood, you know where literally every Brazilian-American lives because they have the flag of Brazil flown.
You rarely see Mexican flags in Mexico or even national colors outside of football contexts. In fact it’s technically illegal to display flag because it is considered an official emblem of national authority (kind of like wearing a fake badge).
Mexican flag use is mostly a Mexican-American thing which is influenced by American flag use…
In my brief experience Parisians are extremely patriotic, the number of national flags I saw there is about up there with Americans.
I was raised by European immigrants back when we still had segregated areas and waving their countries flag around was a matter of pride, which included plenty of Germans.
So this idea is new, and when I’m holding the American flag it isn’t against any country. It is for the idea it represents, and i don’t care if we never achieved it. No country has.
There’s a difference between patriotism, which can be a good thing, and nationalism, which rarely is. It’s a shame “Pride” is such an ambiguous word in English, because it has many meanings that sound like they’re related, but are actually quite distinct; some very good, some deadly serious corruption.
I don’t see a difference between US patriotism and the bad kind of nationalism. It’s just better branding. But that it’s such good branding makes it worse, because even lefties don’t question their own arrogance when it comes to other countries, which enables imperialism.
Just take the endless unquestioning, mandatory “thank you for your service” to veterans. That is not something I’ve ever seen in my country or think is a thing in other countries. Soldiers generally do not see action either. They are not supposed to see action. That the US soldiers see so much action is due to imperialism. It’s so weird.
Or the whole pledge thing in school, ew. Making small children swear an oath to a fascist regime and police state, just despicable lol. Or the national anthem before every football game. If you’d see the same thing in China you’d see how weird it is.
PS: Sorry if I come off a little too negative, I’m sure there are positive forms of patriotism. Just not in the USA lol.
Patriotism is simply loving your nation. Part of loving your nation means being proud of the good it’s done. Part of it means acknowledging its faults, and working to make it better. The problem is, for too long America has let nationalists, who refuse to acknowledge its mistakes, own and define the word. Being a patriot doesn’t mean blind loyalty. It doesn’t mean hollow symbols, or forcing children to chant oaths before they’re old enough to think for themselves. It’s having the courage to believe your nation can always grow wiser and more just. Patriot theatre is for people incapable of having a mature relationship with their community (and likely anyone else for that matter).
It’s having the courage to believe your nation can always grow wiser and more just
Sorry if I harp on and be all negative, but I see a problem with that notion right there.
If you were talking about a nation that was truly wise and just and not engaged in all kind of evil over the last 70 years, fine.
But the USA has been a fucking asshole ever since the vietnam war. Do you know how many innocent victims died in that war? It was millions. And forever they produced stories and movies about the trauma of those poor veterans and how 50.000 brave young men died, or how they proudly looked at the massacres they done to make sure it never happens again. Who cares about one village, they killed millions. An illegal war, completely immoral, and death and destruction on an incredible scale.
And since then, did the USA grow wiser and more just? To believe in that despite clear evidence isn’t courage, it’s delusion. It’s a shield and cover to keep doing as they are doing, while painting it over with pretty words.
Instead you should have the courage to believe that your nation is truly corrupt and ruled by amoral people and institutions and that your nation should stop any imperialist foreign policy immediately and focus on your own shit.
Yeah, it’s bad. So was Belgium in the 1800s So was Germany not too long ago. Britain has been a menace off and on since the neolithic. Malaysia, the Mughals, the Mongols, etc. Every nation goes through times when they’re a menace, both to themselves and everyone else. The US has never been a particularly good nation. But it’s young.
Believing it can get better doesn’t mean assuming it will. I also never said it would happen tomorrow. We didn’t sit around and wait for the Nazis to get better in the mid 1900s, we did what had to be done. Also, I’m Canadian, not American, so watch where you’re point the “You” friend.
Do Canadians also use “patriotism” as a word? Afaik it’s not used outside North America.
Every country has a word for it. Patriotism just means something different here than it does in the US. That’s the way a lot of things work. We share a lot of words. They don’t always mean the same thing in Canada as they do in the US, which is very confusing for people.
I always low-key know that the US is really young, but I always forget exactly how young it is. Like my town is 3-4 times older at least and there are nearby ruins which are in excess of 20 times older
I mean there are cities and ruins here that are that old as well. One capital of a native tribe here is over 1000 years old based off just archeological remains, and oral tradition puts it far older still. It’s still occupied and acts as the center of their tribal land. There are others as well, but as a white neoeuro country the US is very young.
In the US, 100 years is a long time. In Europe 100 miles is a long distance.
What sickens me so much is that these sister-fuckers think that patriotism only belongs to them.
Also annoying: the overly online types that act like the United States can never be redeemed and never did anything worthwhile.
Fuck that noise. We have to reclaim that flag and the American experiment to try to actually strive to be better.
Yes, 100%
It’s not a good design, anyway, according to the principles of vexillology. We should replace it after the civil war.
Es mejor. But where are the elefantes?
I wear a black American flag patch on my day bag upside down so everyone knows that I know shit is fucked.
No, but we want to fly a red flag.
Dear Leader’s first term saw a lot of new flagpoles installed in the suburbs. Spindly, short, ultra-cheap poles, placed way too close to the street or sidewalk. With flags so large that they nearly touch the ground. Flag in your face, flag as a confrontation, as a challenge. Those flags are red flags for sure.
Also a bad sign: households who feel that one flag is good, but a dozen miniature flags are better, and both is best of all.
I had this conversation with an American recently. They said their country had become an embarrassment and source of anger for all of his people. They were absolutely against almost everything the government had been doing for years. They still loved what it was supposed to stand for, but had no idea how to show it or even if to show it.
Tap for spoiler
It was a Jewish-American, they were talking about Israel.
I want to put a flagpole in my yard to fly the American flag, but I want to fly the Ally Pride flag under it. I want it as a reminder that the flag doesn’t just represent the assholes.
My wife won’t let me, because she thinks it will make us a target. To me, that’s the reason I want to do it.
She hasn’t said yes yet, but I’m still working on it.
I’m sure you could find this sentiment among a lot of people from a lot of different places.
