What does your flag mean to you?. What kind of emotions does it bring up in you?. Over the past few months I have been unable to walk down the street or turn on the TV without having the Union flag waved in my face. With the Queens JUbilee and the forthcoming Olympics the idea with most companies is that if you stick a Union flag on your product then the public will snap it up in a frenzy of Brit-mania (Kit-Kat renaming itself Brit-Kat was a pretty good example of this!). It is even being used by companies that aren't even British!. Now instead of feeling some kind of national pride, every time I see the flag i just think 'Someones selling something'. I feel nothing for the flag.
Flags don't mean shit to me. They are basically corporate symbols and pieces of cloth people wave around to express pride for what they believe to be "their" country. They're very subliminally powerful, though, and are good for getting people to go off and die for something they don't understand, yet because of brainwashing feel passionate about.
From kindergarten to fifth-grade, I went to a small country school. It held thirty kids. Every morning we had to stand up, put our hand to our heart, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I didn't know what pledge meant (though later I learned from the tv that it was a great furniture polish). And I didn't know what allegiance meant either. And as far as republic, forget about it; I had no concept of what a republic was. The only thing I understood was the word "indivisible." I knew that that meant that no one could see you. Apparently, it wasn't important to the teacher that I understood it. The only thing that seemed to matter is that I repeat it over and over and over again. Following the Pledge of Allegiance, we had to sing "America." Didn't really understand that either. Like, ". . . of thee I sing" was to my ears, "of the icing."
It doesn't mean anything to me really... I'm glad i'm french, but i teach english for a living so my notebooks have union jacks on them and in my classroom u can see a huge US flag on one wall... i am more used to seeing those flags than my own country's.
Since when did people in the US speak English My flag makes me thinking of native killing/genocide, racism and trying to keep people out of here.
It brings to mind founding fathers, and what they accomplished. And also the great potential this country has and hole that we will one day reach it.
The american flag means nothing to me but the symbol of a country that is the biggest bully on the block and acts like it, killing innocent people and invading other countries with seeming impunity. I refuse to fly it or have that symbol on anything I own with the exception of a Mickey Mouse pin, it is the shape of Mickey's head, filled with the american flag but it was made in China. I loved the irony.
I'm very proud of my nations flag, it's been called all sorts from various people. From the symbol of imperialisim to the butchers apron, but to me it represents pride and the achievements that were created under the union flag. Nothing wrong with flying the colours of your nation. Many people died under those colours whether you think they died in vain or not, no need to diss it. When you see a military funeral and the flag over the coffin , well yes it makes me sad but I also think how the family of the guy killed will find some pride in that. You lot should be more patriotic .
i think that the pride for your flag comes somewhere along the lines of playing for a sports team, you get drafted by a team and you want to help them, be part of them, root for them to do well. makes you feel like you are contributing and being a part of something greater than just a lone person in a big world. perfectly understandable to hear people say it means nothing though, after all nobody asked to be born wherever they did.
fucking nothing. its a flag. i like the union flag but only because i i think it looks nice, i don't particularly ascribe any meaning to it, how could something so complex as a nation and its people be entirely contained in something as simple as a load of primary colours and geometric shapes? this view doesn't make me un-patriotic, i love my country (in some ways), but the whole idea of a flag for me represents an insulting over-simplification of something that i love for its eccentricities, its diversities, its weirdness, inconsistencies and yes, its GLARING faults and the things for which, i, as a member of that nation, should feel guilty and attempt, as best i can, to rectify. no flag could ever represent all of that. flags are just a form of short-hand to make certain things simpler, they should never be seen as more than that. as for that "i pledge allegiance to the flag..." stuff....fuck that noise.
