This reflection was prompted by the fact that I had just come from a black-tie function where everyone stood proudly at attention, facing the flag with right hands over their hearts, eyes misting as the “The Star Spangled Banner” was sung. Few people on earth revere their flag like Americans, especially since 9/11. It’s a symbol of freedom, the centerpiece of the national anthem, a patriotic accessory for houses, yards and motor vehicles across the country. It is so sacred that, in California, a protester trying to save an ancient tree from developers named it Old Glory to keep it from being cut down. President George W. Bush recently told the nation (on Flag Day, natch) that by showing respect for their flag, Americans “show reverence for the ideals that guide our nation.”
Why, then, do Americans treat their flag so disrespectfully in everyday life? Teenagers wear them as T shirts. Bikers use them as bandanas. Beachgoers plop themselves onto red, white and blue chaises and dry themselves with Old Glory towels. At this year’s U.S. Open Golf Championship, Woody Austin sported a Stars and Stripes polo shirt. Pekingese dogs on Manhattan’s Upper West Side wear star-spangled waistcoats. You can even buy a Stars and Stripes doormat from Cooking.com as a “symbol of hospitality.”
In other countries, the flag is flown only from government buildings. Here, the biggest flags–vast acres of cloth on soaring flagpoles–flap outside fast-food joints on interstate highways. Two flags are draped over the entrance of an Ob-Gyn clinic near me in New York, perhaps promising the delivery of patriotic babies. The flag even flutters proudly above such establishments as the Exotic World Burlesque Museum in the Mojave Desert.
The Federal Flag Code officially sets forth the rules on how to respectfully fly the American colors. But the sex trade has its own ideas. A prostitute named Air Force Amy appeared recently in The New York Times, reclining seductively in a Nevada brothel called the Bunny Ranch and wearing nothing but an Old Glory wrap. Her clients evidently aren’t bothered that the code states the flag should never be used for advertising or as apparel. Foreign firms are cheerfully cashing in on America’s commercial jingoism. In Washington I’ve spotted dozens of patriotic objects made overseas, including porcelain mugs and tote bags from China–which clearly offend Section 4(H) of the code, stipulating that the flag should never be used as a receptacle. And what to make of Supergirl knickers from Taiwan, or the packets of star-spangled Sniff tissues made in Germany? The shop assistant just shrugged when I asked if it wasn’t disrespectful to blow one’s nose in the national colors.
American firms aren’t slow to use the flag to tout their products, either. A company in Massachusetts makes star-spangled basketball shoes–obviously violating Section 4(B) of the code: the flag “should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground.” Who cares? Every so often Congress gets worked up, but usually only when Old Glory is dissed politically. Efforts to punish protesters or ban flag burning, for instance, always fail on grounds of free speech. Ironically, the American Legion veterans’ organization insists that an old flag should be burned rather than thrown away. After first being cut and folded to “triangular perfection,” “Taps” should be played as the flag goes up in flames. Somehow, I can’t see Air Force Amy doing that when she discards her wrap.
