On The U.S. Flag -- It's A Wash |
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Dear Fellow & Sister anti- Imperialist Vets: Here's my 2c worth re: flag burning: Instead of a flag-burning kit, think about using a flag-WASHING kit! Are we serious about turning things around and changing this country in a positive, anti-imperialist direction? If so, we need to employ the strategy of "Unite the Many and Defeat the Few". Who are the "many"? Look around. It's the people we work with, the people in our communities across this country. It's the people who have to work for a living, and those who have been and are being displaced and made homeless by labor-replacing technology because it's in corporate hands.
The many who love the flag do so not because it symbolizes rapacity, war, & the greed of the ruling class, but because it represents all that is good about America - and there IS plenty. Woody Guthrie's song "This Land is Your Land" comes to mind. It is up to us to help the majority see what revolutionary Patriotism means: 1. Defending our country against those few who would waste lives, squander our nation's human and natural resources, destroy the civil liberties of its citizens, and pollute our land, air, and water for profit. 2. Educating our fellow citizens about how the government is spending billions of dollars from the public treasury, which came from the taxes of hard-working people, on schemes to enrich the trans-national and military-industrial corporations - including a war based on false premises - weapons of mass deception - which is, as we read these words, taking the lives of our sons and daughters and people in Iraq, Colombia, and other victims of imperialism. 3. Organizing an effective movement to build a new America based on the principles of the revolutionaries who sought to establish a government of, by, and for the common people - not the wealthy elite - of this land. Real patriotism means taking back our flag and our country from the clique of profiteers that cynically distort patriotism for fascist purposes. We need to encourage serious, far-reaching debate in this country about what kind of country - and world - we want. That debate isn't promoted by burning flags. The ultra-right LOVES it when we burn flags because that tactic alienates the very people we need to unify into a revolutionary force. Too much is at stake for us to shoot ourselves in the foot like this. At May Day gatherings here in Olympia, some friends and I conducted flag-washing ceremonies. It gets the point across much better than flag burning. Instead of alienating people and pissing them off, it elicits a positive response. It's pretty easy, but it takes 3 or 4 people.
Take back our flag,
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