Flag Day

MJG

Hi Guys,

I’m surprised that nobody on this fine site has mentioned that it’s Flag Day. Although not our most famous holiday, it deserves a few moments of reflection. Here is a Link that is worth those few moments:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XfzJ8UBr-c0

Johnny Cash does a good workmen like job. That’s totally expected. I salute the flag. God bless America. God bless the flag. God bless all you good folks.

Best Wishes

Old_Skeet

I flew the Betsy Ross today. This flag has flown over the Capitol in memory of Joseph Wilson Ervin, Congressman from North Carolina and member of the 79th Congress. He was a brother of Sam Ervin, Jr., U S Senator , who chaired the Watergate Proceedings causing President, Richard Nixon to resign. My wife and I own Joe's former home which was built in 1938 and it has been In our family since the 1960's. It is a very modest home and nothing like what the Washington crowd resides in today.

I'm sure some of the older members on the board remember these proceedings.

Derf

"I’m surprised that nobody on this fine site has mentioned that it’s Flag Day." That doesn't surprise me. If memory servers me , no mention of Memorial Day.
Covid-19 has taken a toll on everyone !
Stay Safe, Derf

msf

Tying the two together, AFAIK in NJ, that Flag Day flag should be flown at half staff " in recognition and mourning of all those who have lost their lives and have been affected by COVID-19."

https://nj.gov/state/dos-flag-status.shtml

Crash

Tough for me to do Flag Day while in mourning for the nation.

WABAC

When I was growing up my mind was filled with all sort of ideas about the flag code.

[These days,] though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honor’d in the breach than the observance.

Flag Day used to be a good time to take a hard look at how your baseball team was doing.

Sven

I am with @msf to dedicate the Flag Day to those lost to COVID-19.

LewisBraham

It is just as patriotic to criticize America for its failings and try to improve it as slavishly saluting the flag no matter what the public and private sectors are currently doing ostensibly in our names. In fact there is a long tradition of gadflies--Twain perhaps being the most prominent--whose critiques are also love letters to our First Amendment.

Old_Skeet

Hi guys ... If we were to dedicate the Flag Day to those lost of COVID-19 why not also for those lost to The Pague of the 1920's. I am a member and cemetery sexton of an old Southern church that dates back to the Revolutionary War. In it's cemetery we have a whole row of those that passed from the 1920's plague. I'm not seeing anywhere that number of folks passing from COVID-19, at least not yet. As a matter of fact, we have not yet had a burial that was the result of COVID-19.

Mark

Nobody is talking about dedicating flag day to anyone. A suggestion has been made that it be lowered to half-staff to honor those who died from Covid-19. See the difference there?

BenWP

I think it is laudable to honor the flag. However, the practice of making saluting the flag and the playing of the national anthem before sporting events makes no sense. I can understand playing national anthems before international sporting events, for instance, where the pride of a country is on display. Lately we have seen the NFL, in particular, politicize games by having members of the military troop onto the field before games, thereby conflating support for the military with a moment of reverence. General Milly, most recently in his apology, helped us to understand that our military should have no role in our domestic affairs.

rono

Howdy folks,

Couldn't resist. First off, I always stand for the pledge and anthem - either at attention or parade rest. Comes from being an Eagle Scout and a S/Sgt in the Marine Corps. That said, I spent 20 months in 'nam defending YOUR right to kneel or burn it or whatever. I wouldn't - but you have that right.

When people say it's disrespectful to take a knee, take a look at the Flag Code. It states unequivocally that the flag can NEVER be worn as clothes or stuck on your pickup as a decal. Hell, it's not supposed to be flat as it is during halftime at the football games in the middle of the field. I consider all of that crap to be not only disrespectful but illegal.

If you have to make disrespecting the flag a crime, you have already lost the war.

and so it goes,

peace,

rono

LewisBraham

@rono

I consider all of that crap to be not only disrespectful but illegal.
If you have to make disrespecting the flag a crime, you have already lost the war.

Sounds like you've already lost the war from those two paradoxical statements.

From Wikipedia regarding the Flag Code:

The United States Flag Code establishes advisory rules for display and care of the national flag of the United States of America....In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Eichman that the prohibition of desecration of the U.S. flag conflicts with the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and is therefore unconstitutional.[9]

Note the words "advisory rules." They are just recommended rules, not legally enforced ones. Also, I would rather show my respects to and preserve our First Amendment freedoms and our Constitution over a cloth symbol brandished jingoistically any day.

I would add that a disproportionate percentage of African Americans also served and in many cases died in the Vietnam War. Should they stand for the flag of a country that has let the police, the primary instrument of the law, murder them with impunity for decades while they too fought for this country? Does the flag truly represent liberty and freedom for them when our justice system does not treat them equally before the eyes of the law?

sma3

@old_skeet

How well I remember Senator Ervin and how proud am I to say I am a Texan, like the other superstar of Watergate, Barbara Jordan.



As a Black Woman she had every reason to echo Lewis Braham's sentiments above. But instead she said

"Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, “We, the people.” It is a very eloquent beginning. But when the document was completed on the seventeenth of September 1787 I was not included in that “We, the people.” I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation and court decision I have finally been included in “We, the people.”

Today, I am an inquisitor; I believe hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.

…The subject of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men. That is what we are talking about. In other words, the jurisdiction comes from the abuse or violation of some public trust. "

Unfortunately it does not appear that there are many with her or Ervin's moral leadership in Congress today

msf

"Unfortunately it does not appear that there are many with her or Ervin's moral leadership in Congress today."

That's a joke son, I say a joke.

States Senate (1954-1974)- On one hand, Ervin earned a reputation as the Senate's leading constitutional authority and a champion of individual rights. He stood up against Sen. Joe McCarthy and fought to protect the civil liberties of the mentally ill, military personnel, Native Americans, and government employees. The senator gained his greatest fame as the folksy ol' country lawyer who preserved the Constitution against Richard Nixon's abuses of presidential power during the Watergate crisis in 1973. On the other hand, the senator's attempt to stop Kennedy's civil rights plank at the Democratic National Convention of 1960 was but one example of his steadfast opposition to civil rights. Ervin served as the principal legal adviser to the segregationist bloc in the Senate and voted against virtually every civil rights bill proposed during his political career.
...
Ervin, [his critics] said, was a "Claghorn's Hammurabi." Like the fictional Senator Claghorn on the Fred Allen Radio Show in the 1930s—and the cartoon rooster Foghorn Leghorn on the Bugs Bunny Show thirty years later—Ervin looked, acted, and sounded like an old-fashioned, windbag, Dixie politician.
...
He said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was "as full of legal tricks as a mangy hound dog is fleas," and the following year he warned that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 "would make the constitutional angels weep."

Campbell, Karl E. “Claghorn's Hammurabi: Senator Sam Ervin and Civil Rights.” The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 78, no. 4, 2001, pp. 431–456. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23522437. Accessed 16 June 2020.

Old_Skeet

Hi guys ... I have lived and still do live in interesting times in a neigborhood that is rich in history. Even though my family has owned one of the former Ervin homes since the 60's I grew up just one block away from another person that played a key role to end segretation in public schools. That was Judge, James B. McMillan. Acutually, went to school with his son and we played together as children in the neighborhood park. Below are the details on the judge who ordered bussing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bryan_McMillan

As you can see, the neighborhood was divided from those that were of the Ervin posture (as Sam was) and then those that thought like the Judge ... but, even though there were differences, that split between many, the kids in the neighborhood seemed to all get along.

Below is the bio on Senator Sam who was a champion of civil liberties. Civil Liberties include but are not limited to freedom of conscience, press, religion, expression, assembly, the right to secure liberty, freedon of speech and privacy ... equal treatment under the Law with due process, along with the right to own property and to defend oneself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Ervin

rono

Howdy folks,

Sorry if I wasn't more clear Lewis.

In the America I grew up in, the Flag Code was considered to be law - at least that's how we interpreted it.

Also, as I stated, I have and will defend your right to free speech and that includes disrespecting the flag as you see fit. I don't approve and wouldn't do these things myself, buy you have that right.

Kneeling is traditionally a sign of respect. When Colin knelt, he was not disrespecting the flag, nor the military. That was all a bullshit lie circulated by Trump and the folks wearing MAGA hats. They were the ones that labeled it disrespect. Not me. That said, even if you consider kneeling a disrespectful action, YOU STILL HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO IT.

I also said that if you have to outlaw disrespecting the flag, the war is already lost. Period. Shit, we used to be a great country and we might be able to become one again. At least I hope so. That said, if Trump is reelected, America is DEAD. finis.

This is 7 years old and pretty much sums it up. Anyone that doesn't realize that this is true . . . Since this came out the metrics are worse. We're rapidly becoming a 3rd world banana republic.



And so it goes,

peace,

rono

Crash

That series was brilliantly written, if that oft-quoted scene is representative. I saw only scattered bits of it. And the scene @rono includes above speaks for me--- except for the point about having voted for candidates of both major parties. I sadly concur with rono's summary of our situation.

Old_Joe

Truth.

Rbrt

I watched the clip before reading it was 7 years old. I thought it might be soon to be released.

I am currently reading “Unmaking the Presidency” - so far they have only touched on the smaller stuff but it is eye opening.

Crash

Just finished "A Very Stable Genius." The Mueller Report's "conclusions" were not explicit enough. The investigators walked a knife-edge, given the prior legal guidance that said a sitting President could not be indicted. I might liken it to the way "How-ud Koh-SELL" would verbally walk his way through a videotape of an obvious infraction which did not get called by the referee in the boxing ring or the football field. "Here's the (freeze-frame) picture, here's what was done. The official saw no penalty to call, no need to throw his flag. Look and decide for yourselves." Ya. And it was just too convenient to ignore the obvious, particularly about the Obstruction side of the Inquiry. The portrait of Barr in the book was actually sympathetic. And before making even a redacted summary public, the Mueller team's guy decided (over the phone) there was no need to preview what Barr's team would put together and offer to Congress and the public. ... But now, just today, Bolton's book reveals that Trump was quite explicit in enlisting Xi of China to aid his re-election. I tell you, The Trumpster is a shell of a human. And so is Bolton. An old acquaintance often said: "I can't call him an asshole, because an asshole has a function. That guy is just an ass."

davidrmoran

https://i.redd.it/3ex9fg7m9li31.jpg

Crash

All true!

Rbrt

I hadn’t seen Doonesbury in forever. A quick google led me here to Sunday’s strip:
https://twitter.com/dan_londe/status/1272909761487548417?s=21
(I assume last Sunday, could be a couple of weeks old).

How could they have been to corrupt to collude? Quite sad!

zenbrew

What & who does the flag actually represent? What is aspired vs the reality? It's tragic & probably reaching an inflection point. Before we go forward, we need to stand & recognize where we've been.

From the Veggie Tales creator, Phil Vischer- very succinct & to the point synopsis:



From the Atlantic Monthly. I didn't realize they have been around since 1857. A compilation of articles throughout that time:

"How Did We Get Here"

Crash

Historical reference re: 4th of July, coming up quick. From the year 1852. Frederick Douglass. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927.html