Flag

If you are in the Miami area and travel the Palmetto Turnpike, either south to the Florida Keys, or north to its terminus at the Atlantic Ocean, you will come upon a series of car showrooms with a succession of American flags advertising their presence. These flags are enormous and there seems to be a competition among car dealers, and used car dealers in particular, to see who can hoist the biggest “Old Glory.” The rationale seems to be that the owner of the biggest flag is the more patriotic and, if you are a patriot yourself, it stands to reason you will buy your vehicle from the car dealer who flies the biggest flag.

It is the contrivance of Hucksters of not very subtle stripe. As a child I was intensely patriotic, as most children are. As a young man I entered the service and came out five years later. Because of the breakout of the Korean war, I joined a reserve unit, did three more years and felt I had paid my dues. That’s what it’s about you see, paying your dues, not peddling something wrapped in the Stars and Stripes.

The previous owner of MacDonald’s Hamburgers raised a fuss when he declared his intention of flying the flag night and day and would pay any fines levied on him. He was a super patriot. The colors should be retired at night and if you’ve ever been on a military installation when colors is played, you will not likely forget. It is a haunting and beautiful experience.

I am also annoyed and saddened when I come across a bumper sticker which reads, “America, Love it or Leave it,” “America for Americans,” has a National Rifle Association Logo alongside one of the First Marine Division or another fine outfit, and the car is a Toyota. American to the core until it comes to choice of vehicle.

The photo of marines raising the flag on the summit of Mt. Suribachi, on Iwo Jima is a testament to courage and faith in your cause. It needs no cutline, it’s just a tribute to the blood-soaked black sands of that embattled little island in the Pacific.

I remember just after Hurricane Andrew had destroyed the lower half of Dade County, Florida, how one of my neighbors had raised the flag, an old 48 star version from World War II, over the ruins of his home. I thought it was fitting, that it represented the best that we are as a people, that we could and would get off the canvas and prevail after eighty thousand homes were heavily damaged or totally flattened.

Another fine sight was a convoy of Army trucks finally getting to the region. Some of them had small American flags affixed to bumpers and fenders and I was applauding and cheering like all the rest of the survivors who were beat up, but not beaten.

I don’t think the founding fathers, those incredible radicals, had in mind business people pimping their wares behind a display of roaring patriotism. I would send these same pimps to the South Pole with just the American flag to cover themselves with, then follow that group with those who spit on or burn the flag, with a supply of matches and let them have at each other. I wonder how many flags would be desecrated or burned under those circumstances.

Alan Payton wrote a book entitled Cry the Beloved Country, and I think of that title almost daily as it applies to my own land and I wonder where we went wrong. In the wonderful musical “1776,” John Adams sings, “Is anybody there, does anybody care?” Are we so enamored of the pursuit of the almighty dollar that decency and respect are words disappearing from our vocabulary?

More and more critics and writers are lamenting the loss of “civility” in this wounded, yet wonderful ,country. We attempt freedoms which are almost impossible to guarantee and we falter, stumble and sometimes fall. But the guarantees are still there in a wonderful document in Washington.

Don’t let the whores take over, even if they drape themselves in the American flag.

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