A week ago, on the official observance of Memorial Day, I crept early out the front door to hang my American flag. I knew if I didn't do it then, the day might pass without this gesture, the very least I could do to mark its meaning.
I assumed I was simply the first homeowner on the block to show my colors, but when I went out to bring in the flag before dark---proper flag etiquette, I was taught---I was startled to note that I was apparently the only homeowner on the block to bother. Not even the Republican town com-
mitteeman two doors down, who rarely misses the opportunity to plant political candidates' signs all over his front lawn, had put out a flag. The couple across the street, who used to hang a humongous American flag from the second-floor balcony over their front door, did not hang one of any size this year. They are, like me, vehemently opposed to the war in Iraq, and only their Tibetan peace banner waved from their porch.
As I carefully rolled up the Stars and Stripes to store in the corner of the front-hall closet until the Fourth of July (I never remember Flag Day until June 15th), I wondered whether flying the flag on national holidays has become too politicized or possibly too banal. Am I becoming a knee-jerk patriot---a type of creature I detest---because I still do it?
I pondered whether my neighbors were simply more judicious than I in their choice of ways to observe the occasion; might I even see a profusion of flags on May 30th, the "official" Memorial Day? Well, no, I didn't. I didn't put mine out last Friday myself; I forgot.
To be sure, "flag-waving" has become a synonym for the type of patriotism that Samuel Johnson defined as "the last resort of a scoundrel" and that Ambrose Bierce maintained was such a jingoist's first resort. We've seen more than enough of that in the right-wing blogosphere's denunication of Barack Obama for not always wearing a flag lapel pin. During the Vietnam war, when anti-war protesters burned the flag and mistreated it in every way they could think of to symbolize their frustration with the government, legislators of conservative stripe attempted to make such "desecration" a federal crime punishable by a prison term.
The real desecration comes at the hands of those whose causes are in direct contravention of the ideals the Stars and Stripes stands for, yet who wrap themselves in its folds. It is easy enough to find photographs of hooded Ku Klux Klansmen marching in public with an American flag at the head of their column or of German-American Bund meetings where an American flag and a Nazi swastika flank the speaker's podium. The book jacket photo above, which is the subject of the book itself, was taken during America's Bicentennial Year, 1976, in Boston, the nation's self-described "Cradle of Liberty." The controversy was over busing to achieve racial balance in the public schools, where all students were presumably expected to pledge allegiance to the same flag. How's that for star-spangled irony?
Of Sam Johnson's often-quoted definition of patriotism, his biographer, James Boswell, felt obliged to explain, "...Let it be considered that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest."
"A real and generous love of our country..." That would be any of us, all of us, and reason enough to fly our colors for all to see. Naturally, my reasons for loving the United States of America and taking pride in her with a flourish of Old Glory may not be the same as yours---or my neighbors'---so some days I will put out my flag and some days not. For instance, I am sure I baffled the entire block the day Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize. If I'd thought of it last fall, I'd have flown the flag when the Red Sox won the World Series...again.
Why not unfurl the flag for family birthdays---or Mark Twain's? Election Day, of course---and Inauguration Day, if your candidate wins. A couple I know hang the flag on the mailbox of their summer retreat to show, like the Queen of England, that they're in residence.
Pick your own special reason, run the Red, White, and Blue up the flagpole, and I'll be happy to salute it! This is, after all, the society of which Thoreau wrote, "Any man [person] more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one," and his birthday...well, I'll just have to look that up!
I assumed I was simply the first homeowner on the block to show my colors, but when I went out to bring in the flag before dark---proper flag etiquette, I was taught---I was startled to note that I was apparently the only homeowner on the block to bother. Not even the Republican town com-
mitteeman two doors down, who rarely misses the opportunity to plant political candidates' signs all over his front lawn, had put out a flag. The couple across the street, who used to hang a humongous American flag from the second-floor balcony over their front door, did not hang one of any size this year. They are, like me, vehemently opposed to the war in Iraq, and only their Tibetan peace banner waved from their porch.
As I carefully rolled up the Stars and Stripes to store in the corner of the front-hall closet until the Fourth of July (I never remember Flag Day until June 15th), I wondered whether flying the flag on national holidays has become too politicized or possibly too banal. Am I becoming a knee-jerk patriot---a type of creature I detest---because I still do it?
I pondered whether my neighbors were simply more judicious than I in their choice of ways to observe the occasion; might I even see a profusion of flags on May 30th, the "official" Memorial Day? Well, no, I didn't. I didn't put mine out last Friday myself; I forgot.
To be sure, "flag-waving" has become a synonym for the type of patriotism that Samuel Johnson defined as "the last resort of a scoundrel" and that Ambrose Bierce maintained was such a jingoist's first resort. We've seen more than enough of that in the right-wing blogosphere's denunication of Barack Obama for not always wearing a flag lapel pin. During the Vietnam war, when anti-war protesters burned the flag and mistreated it in every way they could think of to symbolize their frustration with the government, legislators of conservative stripe attempted to make such "desecration" a federal crime punishable by a prison term.
The real desecration comes at the hands of those whose causes are in direct contravention of the ideals the Stars and Stripes stands for, yet who wrap themselves in its folds. It is easy enough to find photographs of hooded Ku Klux Klansmen marching in public with an American flag at the head of their column or of German-American Bund meetings where an American flag and a Nazi swastika flank the speaker's podium. The book jacket photo above, which is the subject of the book itself, was taken during America's Bicentennial Year, 1976, in Boston, the nation's self-described "Cradle of Liberty." The controversy was over busing to achieve racial balance in the public schools, where all students were presumably expected to pledge allegiance to the same flag. How's that for star-spangled irony?
Of Sam Johnson's often-quoted definition of patriotism, his biographer, James Boswell, felt obliged to explain, "...Let it be considered that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest."
"A real and generous love of our country..." That would be any of us, all of us, and reason enough to fly our colors for all to see. Naturally, my reasons for loving the United States of America and taking pride in her with a flourish of Old Glory may not be the same as yours---or my neighbors'---so some days I will put out my flag and some days not. For instance, I am sure I baffled the entire block the day Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize. If I'd thought of it last fall, I'd have flown the flag when the Red Sox won the World Series...again.
Why not unfurl the flag for family birthdays---or Mark Twain's? Election Day, of course---and Inauguration Day, if your candidate wins. A couple I know hang the flag on the mailbox of their summer retreat to show, like the Queen of England, that they're in residence.
Pick your own special reason, run the Red, White, and Blue up the flagpole, and I'll be happy to salute it! This is, after all, the society of which Thoreau wrote, "Any man [person] more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one," and his birthday...well, I'll just have to look that up!
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