Flag-Waving Is For Sissies!

As it turns out, today’s day in history is Flag Day, June 14th, the commemoration of honoring one of our nation’s national symbols, namely the American flag. It officially became established in 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson declared by national proclamation, that each June 14th would be designated as Flag Day.

I felt it would be appropriate to run this, an older opinion piece of mine, written in early 1990, during my senior year at Columbia College in Chicago, just five months before I graduated with a degree in print journalism.

Perhaps it’s not one of my greater opinion pieces I’ve ever written, but for those of you who have read & enjoyed my written work thus far, prepare yourself for a rare glimpse of what my writing looked like back in the day before I became a professional journalist in 1991 and entered into a field that I dearly loved & eventually burned out from in the late 1990s.

Not much seems to have changed in terms of the flag-burning issue, including the last name of the President of the United States. What follows this opinion piece is a list of tips & rules on how to treat Old Glory, courtesy of both the Kansas City Star & the website, www.usscouts.org.

This past week in Washington, D.C., the Bill Of Rights remained intact, due to a failure of passage of a proposed constitutional amendment that prohibited American flag burning. President George Bush who tried desperately to get this amendment passed, played hard on the emotions of the American people, and nearly succeeded too.

The blame doesn't go entirely to Bush, but to the mass media and politicians as well. The media that in their respective mediums, presented the American public with different viewpoints of flag burning, pro and con and the effects it would have on others.

Television out of all the mediums appeared to be the most biased in their approach to this very subject. On screens across the nation, one could see images of veterans’ groups marching in full uniform, speaking out for the protection of the flag and cries of anger expressed by clean-cut individuals who believed that the flag was a sacred object.

On the other hand, television also showed radicals dressed up in ripped army clothes, decorated with peace symbols, saying it was perfectly all right to burn the flag.

Given the viewing choice, it would seem that most people are turned off by radicals, keeping in mind that certain images are burned into peoples' minds at a young age, therefore a disrespectful person, certainly wouldn't be positive, again insuring a victory for all war veterans.
Politicians took advantage of it, by using the flag as their welcome mat of false images. Like Bush, most of them cried foul and shame, playing on the emotions of their constituents in their home districts, just to win votes in the next election, when most of them couldn't really care less.
Other factors to consider here are things like politicians who use the American flag on plastic garbage bags that are given out to voters and American flags that are pinned onto a coat. Are these tactics any better than flag burning?

Whether one is pro-American or anti-American, all should take into consideration both sides of the flag burning issue. Does flag burning constitute an amendment verses minimal damaging incidents to the flag? Both are interesting to consider.


The U.S. Code presents the rules about displaying Old Glory, including:

The flag should not be dipped to any person or thing. The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.

The flag should never touch anything beneath it. The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free. The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free.

Bunting of blue, white, and red, always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker’s desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general.

The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard.

No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform. However, a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations.