The American Standard Bearer

Some people are so easily seduced by power. It looks like Cindy Sheehan, when given the choice, decided to forsake her brothers and sisters in arms at the protest rally outside the U.S. Capitol in exchange for a warm seat in the gallery at the State of the Union Address.

California Congresswoman Lynn Woosley offered Sheehan the gallery pass just hours ago and Sheehan accepted after agonizing for 5 or 10 seconds over the decision. Sheehan will ordinarily speak whenever the opportunity presents itself, but in this case she wisely left it to a “spokesperson” to take the flak. We are assured that Sheehan will mind her manners since she is the guest of a Congresswoman.

Taking into consideration that Sheehan floated the possibility of a Senate run, she no doubt wants the opportunity to soak up some of that Washington ambience while she has the chance.

I read two articles today that in contrast, really illuminate the cultural divide in America.

Author and advertising executive Debbie Daniel writes in Renew America about a recent trip she made to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. I visited the place almost twenty years ago when you could still see legendary country and bluegrass acts like the Monroe brothers and Johnny Cash. The Grand Ole Opry is still the Mecca of the country music scene but a lot has changed. Country music has become a lot more slick and commercialized and it reaches a much wider audience.

The highlight of the evening for Daniel was when singer Mel McDaniel sang “Stand Up!” as a huge American flag unfurled from the rafters and the crowd went wild. The lyrics, “Stand up for the U.S.A – Stand up for America” resonated with the audience in a very powerful way.

Not every one is a country music fan (I myself have no idea who Mel McDaniel is – sorry Mel), but there’s at least one half of America that has claimed the American flag for their own, by default I might add, and can strongly identify with the message.

The other half cringe at the thought of tonight’s State of the Union address and will be cheered by an article that appears in today’s Washington Times about tonight’s anti-war protest to coincide with the President’s speech. The organizing group is called “World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime” and they won a Federal lawsuit allowing them to stand outside the Capitol and make as much noise as they possibly can.

But that’s about all the cheerful news there is about tonight’s protest. Besides the usual washed up and washed out hippies that attend these things, there won’t be the star-power needed to attract the cameras. Instead, the featured speakers will be Cindy Sheehan and Ramsey Clark, which explains why there won’t be any star-power.

Both Sheehan and Clark have been very vocal supporters of a new Palestine and have been photographed extensively with the Palestinian flag. To be fair, Sheehan has also been photographed with an American flag, but it was usually desecrated in some way so that it really wasn’t the American flag, symbolically speaking, but rather, an anti-American flag.

Sheehan and Clark both have strong ties to Islamic terrorist organizations including Hamas and now that Hamas is calling the shots in Palestine, the world is getting a better look at who they really are. The smart celebrities, politicians and movie stars alike, are not likely to get too close the likes of Sheehan and Clark, for the moment at least.

With a clear victory in the Palestinian elections, Hamas has wasted no time in going on the offensive with Israel. Mahmoud al-Zahar, the number one man at Hamas has issued a demand that Israel change their flag lest they send the wrong message to their Palestinian neighbors.

The Israeli flag features two blue stripes on top and bottom with the Star of David in the middle. According to al-Zahar, the blue stripes have to go, “The stripes on the flag are symbols of occupation. They signify Israel’s borders stretching from the River Euphrates to the River Nile.”

The message could not be any more clear. Consistent with Hamas’ charter, Israel has no right to exist, and hence, has no right to borders. Never mind that the blue stripes on Israel’s flag have nothing to do with borders – they instead represent a traditional prayer shawl – Hamas is confirming their commitment to their charter without saying so directly. The intended recipients get the message.

Meanwhile, it would be wise for the rest of the world, including pampered movie stars like George Clooney, to take the words on the Hamas flag at face value. It reads, “There is no God but Allah – Mohammed is his Prophet.” The notion that it’s possible to broker a peace deal with the likes of Hamas should not be entertained.

One senior Hamas official, taking a page from the prophet Mohammed’s own playbook said, “We will be ready for a long interim agreement based on a period of cease-fire that can go to 10 or even 15 years like it was done by the prophet Mohammed with the enemies of the Muslims.” Of course, at the end of 15 years if Hamas has it’s way, the destruction of Israel will be at hand.

The brief exchange between this blog and Canadian John Chuckman poses an interesting question: What is it exactly about the American flag that causes so much hyperventilation among political activists and the intellectual elite in other countries?

Flags are not idols in and of themselves but symbols of ideals that the flag-bearer presumably subscribes to, just as to a Catholic, the Crucifix is not an object to be worshiped, but represents a real thing.

The New York times Books section today features the first chapter of American Vertigo, from French celebrity and Author Bernard-Henri Levy. The chapter is entitled A People and it’s Flag and in it, Levy marvels at the profusion of American flags in America in contrast with his native France where flags are rarely used on an unofficial basis.

Europe has endured violent upheaval wihtin just the last century or so and as a result, it would be difficult for the people of many European countries to identify with a consistent traditional political philosophy. The people of Germany, France, Italy or the former Soviet Union, for example, have witnessed in their own lifetimes or at least, in the lifetimes of parents and grandparents, radical shifts in political control.

I’m talking about not just a shift in popularity of a particular political party, but a change in the form of government. In America, we have cyclical shifts in the dominance of one party over the other and while that may seem like a big deal to some people, the fact remains that the foundation of our form of government has remained unchanged for more than 200 years.

But in Europe and much of the rest of the world, the political foudation is periodically razed and rebuilt as something entirely different, leaving the people nothing to share but a cultural heritage. Here in America, almost the opposite is true. We are a people with a lot less to share in the way of a cultural heritage, but a lot more to share in the way of a solid, and in my opinion, wonderful political heritage.

Americans, by and large, are a people who’s ancestors came here from diverse cultural backgrounds to persue freedom as it was envisioned and implemented by men like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. The American flag represents the commonality of all Americans – the vision of freedom that still endures and still shines brightly.

I have to believe that this shared love of freedom, built upon the solid foundation of our constitutional government, is a thing that’s difficult to comprehend for the jaded and cynical intellectual class of Europe.

In response to my post of Monday this week, the subject of that post, John Chuckman, deposited the following comment on this site:

“Your comments on my piece demonstrate you have read with no understanding. The comparison made is between the USE of the flags, not the flags themselves.

No wonder America keeps being thrust into wars that have no relationship to the wellbeing of Americans themselves. Vietnam was a murderous disaster. Iraq is the same on a lesser scale.

There’s an old saying you’d be wise to take as your own: know the words to the music before you get up to sing.”

Chuckman may think I lack understanding and he has every right to express his opinion (that’s what’s good about opinions), but after reading his comments, I have to disagree.

First, every politician in America, when appearing before the camera, loves to place as many American flags in the background as he or she can possibly buy or rent. For that fact alone, we at Flagstuff are forever grateful. So there is nothing unusual about the President appearing with flags in the background and it certainly doesn’t say anything about his motives or political idealogy.

And secondly, flags are powerful symbols. As Mr. Chuckman pointed out, Hitler was well aware of that fact as are politicians the world over. In fact, at almost every public event in any part of the world, flags play an important role. If you saw the celebrations in the streets of Palestine following the Hamas victory at the polls yesterday, you may have noticed that there were Hamas flags everywhere. Drawing a parallel between George Bush and Adolph Hitler, citing flags as the common denominator, is just plain ridiculous.

As far as Mr. Chuckman’s motives go, he’s very put off by Christians, hence his special aversion to President Bush. And while he may or may not be right that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with the well being of Americans, he should be aware that some friends and neighbors of mine died on 9/11 because his country so freely provided the conduit for some of those terrorists to gain entry into the United States.

You may think I’m making Chuckman out to be rabidly anti-American, but I’m not alone. Al-Jazeerah, the preferred source of news for the radical Islamic world, has eagerly reprinted Chuckman’s article on their website: Read God Bless Canada.

Get ready for more bloodshed between Israel and Palestine. According to the Associated Press, the “Islamic militant Hamas” has won a resounding victory in the Palestinian Parlaimentary elections, securing 76 seats in the 132 seat house. No sooner were the election results announced than Hamas supporters raced to the roof of the Parlaiment building to raise the flag of Hamas. The Hamas flag is green with the words, “There is no God but Allah” as well as “Mohammed is his Prophet.”

There were brief clashes with members of Fatah, the opposition party, including a rock-throwing skirmish. Fatah supporters were able, at one point, to reach the roof and lower the Hamas flag, but they were quickly forced to retreat and the flag was raised again.

With Hamas now firmly in power, further peace negotiations don’t look promising and the official prognosis is not optimistic. For example, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said that the Hamas victory was a “very, very, very bad result.”

The reason for such pessimism is that Hamas has a long history of terrorism and they have demonstrated no serious inclination to give up their weapons of terrorist activities. They have publicly stated that they are dedicated to the destruction of Israel and they have also indicated that their long-term goal is to impose Islam around the globe as the words on their flag hint.

The Hamas organization stretches well beyond Palestine including a strong connection with a small but extremely militant arm in New York City. The Islamic Thinker’s Society operates out of a Brooklyn, New York, mosque and was the incubator for such notorios events as the failed subway bombing and a rabidly anti-American video tape in which American flags were thrown in the street and stomped on.

While the video shows a deliberately vile desecration of the American flag, the narrator says, “Just to show where our loyalty belongs to – you see this flag here? It’s going to go on the floor. And to us, our loyalty does not belong to this flag, our loyalty belongs to Allah … .” Then another speaker follows with the claim that their goal is to help “Islam to dominate over all other religions, to dominate the world, even though the non-Muslims may hate it.”

The results of today’s election are, without a doubt, a giant step backward in the war on terror.

Taking a break from a redesign of the Venezuelan flag, leftist boss man Hugo Chavez is basking in glory as the host to the World Social Forum. Just as he is changing the flag to depict the horse on the seal moving to the left as opposed to the right, all of his guests this week are firmly on the left.

The World Social Forum is in it’s sixth year and is a collection of Communists and Socialists from around the world who’s primary purpose is to gather in a South American country and hurl insults at the United States. As the Russian newspaper, Pravda, reported a few years back, the WSF is “not a forum of Communists, but a forum of ideals shared wholeheartedly by the Communists.”

This year’s celebrity American leftist is none other than Cindy Sheehan who will go anywhere, associate with anyone and do anything to smear the country that has afforded her the freedom to continually broadcast her particular brand of hatred. Praising Chavez, Sheehan said, “I admire him for his resolve against my government and its meddling.” What Sheehan means is that anyone who will join her in her rant against America is to be admired.

I can’t help wondering if Sheehan would be accusing the United States of “meddling” if her son, Casey, had been an office worker killed in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center instead of as a soldier killed in action.

Joe Brown is on trial for spying against the U.S. and so far, the only piece of evidence for his defense is his utterly bogus association with the American flag. A homemade video that was shot during a neighborhood Fourth of July celebration shows Brown coming out of his rented house to which is attached an American flag. The defense was hoping to convince the jury that the flag is proof that Brown is all-American.

The only problem is that Brown is not all-American – “Brown” is just an alias. He is really Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban, a 53 year old Indiana truck driver from Palestine. And if you think that’s bizarre, it’s only the beginning.

Shaaban was indicted nearly a year ago on various charges including acting as a spy for Saddam Hussein’s government and illegally travelling to Iraq in 2002. Shaaban denies working for the Iraqis claiming instead that he was acting as a double-agent for the CIA. He says that his CIA contact was a man named Jim but so far, he has been unable to produce Jim or any evidence of any meetings with Jim or even that Jim exists.

If there is a hero in this weird tale, it would have to be U.S. District Judge John D. Tinder, who has patiently endured the ridiculous behavior of Shaaban. Shaaban has been acting as his own attorney, first questioning himself in English, then replying to his own questions in Arabic. The Court has an Arabic interpreter on hand to repeat in English what Shaaban has just said in Arabic. The highlight of the proceedings may have been when, on several occasions, Judge Tinder has asked Shaaban, “Do you have another question for yourself?”
And when answering questions for the prosecution, Shaaban has avoided direct answers by replying with a question or by saying things like, “Can you repeat your question one more time?” or, “I didn’t understand the question.” In ten days, Shaaban has produced only one witness – himself – and provided only one piece of evidence – the American flag video, which after showing, he simply said, “This is our flag.”

I hope someone is shooting some video – I’d love to see this on Court TV.