Of American flags, American colors and the art of outrage
Georgia GOP chairman Sue Everhart this afternoon joined other Republicans to demand my outrage – and yours — over this bit of art called “Our Stripes” that Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is selling for $35 a print:
“I’m speechless. Utterly disrespectful and outrageous,” Everhart says.
Now, I’m entirely willing to be outraged. I find it exciting, and it burns calories. But I require more information.
***
It is entirely common for political organizations to take flag motifs and alter them for their own purposes. Bunting, for example.
In the above case, the Obama campaign has adopted the form of the U.S. flag (note that there are five stripes, not seven), but has stayed away from the colors. Other groups prefer to use the colors of the U.S. flag – but feel free to play with the form.
***
Some people might declare that putting a personal stamp on a U.S. flag is somehow disrespectful. But Mitt Romney surely isn’t among them, because his campaign is selling this poster on the right for $20.
***
And then there are those who are entirely willing to take the colors of the flag, and what some people might declare a rudimentary representation of the form, and turn it into a pachyderm. Whether this is respectful or not is for others to say – but if you like it, you can buy it here for a couple bucks.
***
Finally, maybe you haven’t heard that Marvel Entertainment has already declared the winner of the 2012 presidential election – through write-in votes – to be Captain America. Who apparently has his own rules – not just about flag protocol, but formal wear, too.
So remind me — which one of these deserves my utter outrage, and why?
- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider
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86 comments Add your comment
You don't say
September 20th, 2012
11:56 pm
milly
td
September 20th, 2012
11:56 pm
You don’t say
September 20th, 2012
11:53 pm
Are you going to the Obama/Biden victory party on election night? If you do please stand in front of a camera so that I can see the total shock on your face when your messiah and chief is kicked out of office.
You don't say
September 20th, 2012
11:57 pm
And you know you are a wuss, that is why you shoot birds while driving 70 and not to someone’s face………
You couldn’t fight your way out of bed…….
You don't say
September 20th, 2012
11:58 pm
td
the cry baby………………… see you around less than wise one
td = TOTAL DOLT
hahahahahahahah
td
September 21st, 2012
12:01 am
You don’t say
September 20th, 2012
11:57 pm
You name the place and time and I will be more then happy to sit down with you, let you have a drink (since I do not), talk about politics and then flip you a bird right to your face afterwords and laugh out loud while I am doing it.
You don't say
September 21st, 2012
12:02 am
where?
You don't say
September 21st, 2012
12:04 am
Tell your mom to wait in the car, this will not take long. No need to leave as she does when she drops you off at the movies and comes back a few hours later
I will even help you to the car.
You don't say
September 21st, 2012
12:05 am
Rush or you little Dick Morris friend will not be able to assist you
td
September 21st, 2012
12:06 am
Looks like Jim is blocking my location details
honested
September 21st, 2012
12:06 am
How quickly we forget…
Flag nonsense was big business after shrub’s inability to protect our country resulted in 9/11 and many fools festooned their car and clothes with flags….
The result was zip (unless you were a Chinese company making flags. td, is your wife’s family in the flag business?)
So, it is probably best to view the ‘outrage’ as more hollow posturing from the party that wouldn’t know appropriate governance if it walked up to them on the street and slapped them across the face with a kid glove.
Governance means so much more than hollow patriotism (or sending young Americans to their death in search of oil).
The gop should feel a deep sense of shame, if it were capable of feeling anything but greed.
Big Hat
September 21st, 2012
12:06 am
I just heard a rumor that Obama has a black baby, just like McCain and Strom Thurmond. Why isn’t Fox News all over this? I’m outraged!
You don't say
September 21st, 2012
12:06 am
see you around total dolt
honested
September 21st, 2012
12:08 am
Big Hat,
I do believe the President has two happy, intelligent, well adjusted, near grown children.
I hope they don’t make public asses of themselves like shrubs kids.
td
September 21st, 2012
12:14 am
You don’t say
September 21st, 2012
12:06 am
LMAO, do not leave mad just leave.
Kris
September 21st, 2012
12:43 am
@ td…I will mail Jim a OBAMA/BIDEN 2012 bumper sticker to send to you,to put on your tricycle.
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012
Attack Dog
September 21st, 2012
6:05 am
It’s amazing that Dixiecrats weren’t outraged with Obama’s original logo. While some compared it to the Pepsi logo, I just knew they would have been upset because it looked like a takeoff from the Japanese “Rising Sun.” No matter, Dixiecrat veterans, please tell us how proud you are of John and Clarence for voting against the GI Jobs Bill. The amount was about how much the Koch Brothers, etal spent on Dixiecrat SuperPacs and political payouts over the past four years.
Doug
September 21st, 2012
6:18 am
Romney wears an American flag pin that is defaced by a GOP icon that is superimposed over the stripes
Ronnie Raygun
September 21st, 2012
7:24 am
Well Republicans are the best when it comes to expressing their political poutrage over nothing. It’s the governing and policy parts of politics they haven’t got a clue about.
Capitol Idea
September 21st, 2012
7:48 am
Poor Miss Sue should go slip into her flag bikini and then wrap herself in a flag snuggie and lie down on her big comfy couch and breath slowly and deeply while enjoying a rerun of Oprah.
Road Scholar
September 21st, 2012
7:49 am
Whoever put td “to bed” ,thank you. Just remember what you did to achieve that! I’m sure we’ll need it again…and again..and…
Edmund Ruffin
September 21st, 2012
7:51 am
To John Parks Brown………….I am a “native” American. I was born in this country. Oh, I get it, you mean Indians. Why didn’t you say so? “Native” American is a misleading as African American. Most of the self identified “African Americans” are not.
Ayn Rand was right
September 21st, 2012
7:59 am
I find it offensive to use our flag in this way, by anyone. However for it to be used this way by a President, is disturbing. Have some respect.
honested
September 21st, 2012
8:07 am
ruffin,
Does it make your head hurt to be so wrong so early in the morning?
honested
September 21st, 2012
8:09 am
The flag is not the Country.
The flag is essentially a battle symbol.
It amazes me how some folks get all bowed up about the flag.
But have no concern their country is slowly being sold to entirely ‘un-patriotic’ corporate overseers.
Anyway, td’s wife’s family makes most of the flags in China today.
buzzy
September 21st, 2012
8:26 am
Boy, the Republicans are really getting desperate now.
Two orders of Sanity Please!
September 21st, 2012
8:54 am
Perhaps if Georgia GOP chairman Sue Everhart spent less time being outraged and more time finding GOP candidates in Georgia that had some damn sense we’d all be better off.
Democratic Plantation Dweller
September 21st, 2012
9:07 am
Vote for Obama…it is easier than getting a job.
Chip
September 21st, 2012
9:11 am
Outrage is not the point. The point is that history, especially the history of the 20th century, points out that this is part of a pattern of behavior of power-crazed dictators. They have recruited idiot celebrities to encourage the masses to pledge allegiance to Obama, not a system of government.
Constitutional law, rule of law, equailty under the law, due process, protected free speech, privacy, and other such hallmarks are fundamental to freedom, indiviuality, and limited government. As corny as some may find the Pledge of Allegiance, the Pledge is about respecting and upholding the whole concept of rule of law and being loyal to an enduring system of government. Along those loines, most people don’t know that every member of our military has sworn an oath to suppost and defend the Constitution — not Congress, not the President, not anything else but the Constitution and the limits on government that it contains.
Unfortunately, all the very concepts of rule of law, equality under the law, and limits on government are just considered annoying obstacles by the likes of Obama and him crazed ObamaZombie followers.
Hitler’s SS swore a personal oath to one individual… Hitler himself. Not to Germany, not to the Nazi Party, but to the dictator. Similar things happened in Mussolini’s fascist Italy; the soldiers of Imperial Japan (who were so brutal they made the Nazis look like Mother Teresa) swore an oath to unconditionally obey one man, their Emperor… and so on… just look at all the past and present examples where mindless followers blindly obeyed charismatic leaders and you will find examples of misery, suffering, opression, slavery, and massive death.
Obama is a silly amateur flake, but then many of history’s worst dictators were nobodies who figured out how to manipulate the weak-minded. So is this tacky Obama flag a big deal? Well, when you combine it with all the scary pictures and footage of stupid people and lazy parasites blindly pledging allegiance to a charismatic nobody, then there just might be reason to worry… unless you think civil war would be fun.
Kris Jones
September 21st, 2012
9:18 am
God forbid we re-elect that horrible failure of a president for another four years.
jbram
September 21st, 2012
9:20 am
Such fake outrage. Lincoln used his image in the blue field of the flag in the 1860 campaign.
td- the five pillars of islam, really.
It could stand for for the traditional Five Wounds of Jesus Christ or
the atomic number of boron or
the uniform number of Joe DiMaggio or
the NASCAR number of Kasey Kahne or
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
Give me a break.
Tom
September 21st, 2012
11:05 am
Chip, please call again when the black helicopters land, m’kay?
The Snark
September 21st, 2012
11:06 am
It ain’t about what’s real or true. It’s about what you can get someone to believe.
Or, in the immortal words of Steve Earle in “Snake Oil” —
“If you aint’ impressed yet, jus’ tell me what you wanna hear.”
DJ Sniper
September 21st, 2012
12:03 pm
This has been another installment of “It’s Only Wrong When Obama Does It.” We now return you to your regularly scheduled tomfoolery.
DJ Sniper
September 21st, 2012
12:12 pm
And is it me, or is td becoming more and more unhinged? His post about the Obama flag design having something to do with the 5 tenants of Islam is a page out of the Faux News playbook.
honested
September 21st, 2012
12:36 pm
DJ
Agreed!
There seems to be a devolution from everyday wrong-wing rants to slipping off into the full bore extremist ether.
DJ Sniper
September 21st, 2012
1:12 pm
Someone needs to send this link to Sue Everhart and anybody else in the GOP who is “outraged” at Obama’s flag design:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/40950_Uh…_About_That__Obama_Flag