American Flag Blog

Amid the waving American flags at this year’s Fourth of July parade, one young marcher was wearing a shirt which was a likeness of the red flag of the former Soviet Union. Here in Park City, where so many of the very wealthy residents enthusiastically embrace every leftist cause as if it were an accessory in a life style that includes $90,000 cars and $10,000,000 ski-in ski-out homes, the Soviet flag is suddenly chic.

Yes, among the lefties here, and I assume in other parts of the country, all things U.S.S.R. are considered cool. If the Soviet Union were truly dead and gone, we could take this trend for what it is, a childish fad fueled by spoiled adults. But in a world that has become so small that local politics can have global implications, the timing seems ominous.

The great hope following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall was that Russia and the various countries that made up the Soviet Union would quickly adapt to a capitalist model. Instead, former KGB agent Vladimir Putin has been gradually drawing Russia back towards socialism.

Socialism dictates private ownership but state control of industry and according to an Associated Press story today, that is exactly what Putin has been up to. Most if not all of Russia’s largest industries are now run by government officials who have been installed in those positions through force.

One example is the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former owner of Yukos oil company. Khodorkovsky was a contributor to the opposition party which landed him a lifetime sentence in a Siberian Prison. Meanwhile, his company, which was at one time the largest in Russia, has been gutted, with the most profitable operations now in the hands of Putin allies.

Putin henchman Arkady Dvorkovich, speaking of Russia’s economic plan says, “…these companies are under state control and this is because the period we are living in - the transitional period from one model of economic development to another.” In other words, from capitalism back to socialism.

Put that together with the news that Putin’s regime has been aiding North Korea in their quest for nuclear weapons and the growing popularity of socialism around the world, including among the idiotic lefties here in America, and it looks as if we may be in for a rocky road ahead.

“Do you see their flags? They show fists of dripping blood! We have American flags here. Do you see any American flags among that group over there?” - Lee Kaplan

One way to describe Lee Kaplan is to say that he is a one-man crusade to expose the treachery of the pro-Palestinians in America today. The excerpt above comes from an article Kaplan wrote about his first-hand experience at pro-Palestine/anti-Israel rally held in San Francisco on Monday and describes his participation as a counter-protestor.

Because we hold our constitutionally protected freedoms to be sacred, Americans are tolerant in the extreme of public displays such as the rally Kaplan describes. For example, according to Kaplan, Palestinian supporters were shouting slogans like, “Through blood we will redeem you, Oh Palestine!” and “Wipe the Jews from the face of the Earth!” while waving flags with the image of a bloody fist.

The danger in hyper-tolerance is that the message is largely ignored. America has been attacked by an Islamic enemy not once, but many times, yet we watch the very same enemy publicly preaching hatred and violence on American soil and we give it a yawn.

Kaplan’s nemesis is a breeding ground for terrorism that goes by the name of the International Solidarity Movement, a group that is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the forced spread of Islam. Kaplan suggests that the ISM is working with the KKK and Neo Nazis and I have no doubt that he’s right, but those groups are small potatoes compared to international communist and anarchist organizations such as ANSWER that are also promoting the Palestinian cause.

The pro-Palestinian Islamic terrorist organizations like the PLO, Hamas, and the ISM have blurred the lines of political idealogy, appealing to all extremists at once, so that moving forward, traditional notions of “left” and “right” will no longer apply. Listen to a Cindy Sheehan, Lynn Stewart, Bill Baker or Eugene Bird and they all sound the same. The common thread is the anhilation of Israel and the United States.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. Kaplan points out the obvious when he observes the lack of American flags but the abundance of bloody fist flags at the ISM rally in San Francisco. The ISM supporters are free to say whatever they please and the rest of America is free to take them at their word and prepare for the worst when they threaten violence.

As we celebrate another Independence Day, it’s worth reflecting on the enormous risk the signers of the Declaration of Independence voluntarily accepted. Just by putting pen to paper, these men were guilty of treason in the eyes of the British. They would have been hanged and their families left destitute if they had failed.

Those who believed so strongly in the cause of freedom that they risked everything also took the new symbol of their struggle seriously. The new American flag, which would be officially adopted less than a year later, represented not only a new America, but a complete split from Great Britain. You see, the flag that preceded it was the Grand Union flag which consisted of thirteen stripes but also contained the British Union Jack.

Flags were taken so seriously in those days that a soldier in battle would protect the flag with his life and to capture the enemy’s flag was considered a great prize and greater symbolic defeat. Yet one leftist crank and dubious academic by the name of Robert Goldstein has a different opinion.

Goldstein wrote a book entitled, Burning the Flag, in which he makes the case (at least for his fellow lefties) that protecting the American flag from the crazies who would burn it violates the First Amendment protections of free speech and besides, we take the American flag way too seriously these days anyway.

Of course, like all leftists with an agenda, he is willing to fabricate a complete lie in order to advance his agenda. Goldstein says, “Until the Civil War, the flag was really not all that popular. People did not fly it (American flag) in front of private homes. Schools did not fly it… It really was not that important.”

Ultra left groups like the People for the American Way, for example, have latched onto Goldsteins writings as ammo in the war over the Constitution, but they dare not question the stupidity of the above statement for fear of exposing their own serious lack of credibility.

The fact is that the American flag was immensely popular in early America, but with no mass production coupled with the expense and difficulty in simply obtaining the fabric to make flags, the average person didn’t have the wherewithal to own one. It wasn’t until around the time of the Civil War that flags of any type were beginning to be mass-produced, making it possible for ownership by ordinary citizens.

There is just no other way to say it, for Goldstein to claim that because “people did not fly it in front of private homes,” the American flag was therefore “not that important,” is simply a lie.

Today we await yet again, another space shuttle launch. NASA and it’s proponents assure us that these never ending “missions” are a key element in the conquest of outer space, and so the Federal Government continues to bequeath billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars to the secretive NASA without nary a peep.

For those of us old enough to remember, during the fifties and sixties, America was in a titanic and exciting struggle for the dominance of outer space with the Russians. I remember as a kid in school in the early sixties, every time a launch was scheduled on a week day, the whole school would stop, TV’s would be wheeled into classrooms, and we would wait in gleeful anticipation for that final countdown - “T minus ten and counting!”

There was truly a patriotic fervor wrapped around those early missions. When American astronauts stepped foot on the Moon and planted the American flag, symbolically claiming the Moon as a U.S. territory, just about every eye was glued to a TV and every heart in America was swelling with pride. That day effectively ended our “space race” with the Russians.

We’re approaching 40 years since that achievement, yet what have we accomplished? If NASA were a business, it would have folded long ago. The oftened stated goal of colonization of space is ridiculous.

Forget about the technical hurdles that must be leapt over before even one self-sustaining colony on say, the Moon or Mars, would be possible. There won’t be a rush to sign up when the time comes for volunteers to step forward. It’s one thing to sail into space for a visit but quite another to wave goodbye to planet earth for the duration.

So where’s the benefit? When the government takes our money, the least we should expect are results. The claims that NASA has produced any real technological breakthroughs are bogus. Government bureaucracy does not drive innovation - consumer demand does.

The sum total of the legacy of 50 years of NASA, it seems to me, is one rather small American flag presumably still standing up there in a Moon crater, and The Right Stuff, a great book by Tom Wolfe about the early pioneers of the space program. It’s time for our government to start respecting taxpayers by only funding that which produces results. Leave the innovation to the private sector - they’re better at it.