Flying the flag upside down, By Hal M. Brown

I find the flag debate, such as it is, to be an interesting sidebar issue. I flew a 3x4 foot American flag upside down at a recent protest and stood next to a man who was wearing a Vietnam vet hat flying a right side up flag. I asked him how he felt about what I was doing. He thanked me for asking and I explained to him why I did this, pointing out the history going back to sailing days when it was used as a distress signal. As the two of us stood next to each other I think we made a powerful statement.

The photo is of Ann and I at demonstration by the road in front of the senior community next to ours. You can’t see other protesters. There were about 45 of them. We are having another protest in front of the facility where we live tomorrow.

What I expect will happen as far as the protest movement goes is that we will see more and more American flags with most displayed the normal way and gradually we'll see more upside down. The more people who display the distress-indicating flag the more people will understand that this does not disrespect the flag.

This flag is described on Amazon as an “Upside Down American Garden Flag - America Is In Distress Flags Double Sided 12x18 Inch, Patriotic Outdoor Decoration” and sends an unambiguous message as to what it means:

The display of an upside down flag has been in the news since Trump won the election. Yesterday it was on the main page of HUFFPOST:

This Google News search come up with many articles.

A good website page to look at that explains the history is Operation Military Kids here.

The website Grunge had a good article about this last week (here).

For the present we intend to display our own American flag in the traditional manner. We make a further statement. We ordered a smaller Pride flag and extensions to the pole so we will fly both as shown in the top photo.

Prior to deciding to using the flag at protests we were among the the majority of people with signs. These were two of ours.

These are some photos I took at a large protest along a busy road at a nearby shopping center.

When we arrived at the protest we were walking from our car and saw a pickup truck with an American flag and another flag flying from the back of the truck. We thought “uh-oh” thinking it was a MAGA provocateur. Then we saw who it was. 

I talked to the man and got permission to use my photos of him in my Substacks because he doesn’t look like the kind of man you’d expect at an anti-Trump protest.

I wll be looking for him at the next protest at this location. I’m curious as to whether he’ll still be flying the flag right side up or will have it upside down.

There are many anti-Trump signs available here on Amazon.

Then there’s the meaning of displaying the Pride flag at anti-Trump demonstrations. 

Because Trump and MAGA have declared war against “woke” and DEI this flag does far more than it used to when it indicated you were a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community or that you were in solidarity with them. 

While it still does this, it also says that you object to Trump and MAGA’s demonization of not only this group but, by association, to their overall bigotry. 

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MAGA minds soft as shit in a sneaker. By Hal M. Brown -- I doubt there are enough Little Dutch Boys to save us from a democracy demolishing dike disaster.

 

This morning I was talking on the phone to my good friend from back east where I used to live. We were discussing politics as we often do. She got into talking about how she finds it so puzzling and upsetting how people can worship Trump the way they do. Her own sister is one of these people. To say she’s smitten by Trump is an understatement. Then she used a term I’d never heard before. 

If you are a regular reader of my Substacks you know how I like descriptive alliterations, my own and when they are used on the main page of websites like HUFFPOST.

She said that these MAGA’s have minds as soft as shit in a sneaker.

Twice a week my partner, Ann, and I go over to her kid’s house and walk their little dog. Of course we always pick up her poop but the last time we walked her she went into some high grass and pooped there. Ann couldn’t find her deposit and pick it up with the poop bag. I told her to give up because nobody walked there. Then I recalled when there were no such things as doggie poop bags and people just let their dogs do their doody anywhere. I recalled the number of times I had the decidely unpleasant experience of stepping in dog doo.

Don’t say I don’t provide references in my Substack for your enlightenment:

Dog poop bags were invented in the mid-1980s as a way to clean up after dogs. They quickly became popular and are now a common sight in parks, on sidewalks, and in other public areas. While some people still prefer to use plastic grocery bags, most dog owners now use specialized poop bags that are made from biodegradable materials. (Reference)

MAGA minds can be described as soft meaning these people are gullible, get their news from far right media, lack the ability or inclination to engage in critical thinking, and when a few do try to get more information they succumb to confirmation bias.

In another way, their thinking isn’t soft, it is hard and rigid. Once they have an established constellation of beliefs which in sum confirm that Trump is a god and his actions are the best thing for themselves and the country they are not subject to change their minds.

Only drastic actions that they can attribute to Trump which hurt them personally may put a hole in the dike that holds back the flood of the destruction of the democracy they enjoy for themselves.

The story of the Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates, which includes the hole in the dike story (but only in some versions), isn’t where this tale originated. It is from from “Dr. Boli’s Fables for Children Who Are Too Old to Believe in Fables “where it was titled .“The Little Dutch Boy Who Saved Holland” (here).

Here’s how that fable begins:

ONCE THERE WAS a little Dutch boy who discovered a leak in the dike.

What should he do? From a single leak, a terrible breach might grow. The whole country could be flooded, and everyone he knew would drown.

So he did the only thing he could think of. He stuck his finger in the dike, and the leak stopped.

Of course, now he was stuck. He couldn’t move, because as soon as he did, the leak would start again.

So he stood there for quite some time. He was rather tired, and his finger felt a bit numb from the effort of holding back the North Sea, but he knew he was doing his duty.

Obviously I mean this to be a metaphor as, perhaps, the author of this did. Consider that as the story goes on the Burgomaster passes by, sees the boy and realizes he is stopping a catastrophe and tells him he will be rewarded but to stay there.

The story continues:

So the boy stood there with his finger in the dike for a few more days.

It was not long, however, before another leak sprang in the dike, a little bit farther down the way.

“What shall we do?” the Burgomaster asked the Burghers. “There is another leak.”

“As private enterprise has so admirably solved the previous problem,” one of the Burghers responded, “the solution to this new leak is obvious. We need only persuade another heroic boy to stick his finger in it.”

So they went into the local school and found another boy who, after much persuasion, was willing to stick his finger in the dike.

It was, however, only a few days later that two more leaks appeared. This time it was much harder to persuade boys to stick their fingers in the holes; and when, a week later, half a dozen more leaks appeared, no volunteers were to be found.

When no boys would volunteer to plug the new holes more were forced to do this lest the dike collapse.

The story concludes:

“What shall we do?” the Burgomaster asked the Council. “We have run out of heroic little boys. At this rate, we may have to plug the leaks with our own fingers.”

“That would be moderately inconvenient,” one of the Burghers remarked.

So the Council voted to remove the North Sea by digging a new seabed somewhere in Germany; and they voted themselves a number of solid gold spades, befitting their dignity, for the purpose. And if you go to suburban Wilhelmshaven right now, and look into the field to your right as you drive westward on the Friedenstrasse, you will see a number of Dutch burghers very busy with their spades, trying to dig a new bed for the North Sea. It is lucky for them that the people of Wilhelmshaven have mistaken the burghers for a party of archaeologists looking for ancient Saxon remains, which has allowed them to continue the work uninterrupted.

I see this as a metaphor for what we face today. There’s no one hero trying to save democracy. There are lots of us. But it remains to be seen whether there are enough.

Addendum:

The following is from this article about The Silver Skates:

The most famous part of Hans Brinker is actually far removed from both the A and B plots (or even the C plot surrounding the race). It is the famous story of the Dutch boy who stuck his finger in the hole in the dike and saved his town. This incident is a folktale facsimile which is apparently based on nothing, but Dodge makes it feel so credible that she convinced whole generations this was an old story – despite appearing in the text only as an English school lesson. It took on a life of its own, and Dutch Genealogy did an interesting article on the topic.

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Does Turmp really blink? By Hal M. Brown

 

I read the following in RawStory:

The word “blink” in the title stood out to me. Here’s where it was used in context:

“It just made sense for Trump to blink given the political or economic cost he faced,” said Myron Brilliant, a senior counselor for the Albright Stonebridge Group. “The pressure is different for Xi even with a weak economy.”

When I thought of writing this Substack I wanted to lead with a GIF of Trump actually blinking. I found one (here) and then it took me a half hour to figure out how to upload it. If anybody is interested (and perhaps a few of you are) this is what the code for this GIF looks like:

I tried and tried again and again to get this to work but then figured out how to upload it to Photos and literally slide it into the editing part of this Substack.

I digress:

The gist of what this article describes is as follows:

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other aides told the president that the blue-collar workers that he considered to be his political base would be hurt if the tariffs weren't lowered, according to two source familiar with the matter who spoke to the Washington Post.

“The key argument was that this was beginning to hurt Trump’s supporters — Trump’s people,” said one person briefed on the talks. “It gave Susie a key window.”

“Does this really mean Trump cares about what pain he inflicts on his supporters” I asked myself, and furthermore, would this cause him to “blink” meaning to reverse position on this, or on anything.

Changing course 180 degrees on something Trump bragged about doing because he was convinced it hurt people would indicate that he actually had a human quality. We know he not only doesn’t care about hurting people he doesn’t care about, but has a sadistic streak where he enjoys having the power to hurt them. If he cared about the feelings of his supporters it would show he can experience more than just feelings of anger, irritation, boredom, and self aggrandizing pride. 

It would suggest that his “caring” is more that just transactional. This would mean he blinked because he was a normal person with a normal feelings.

Could I have been wrong about him when I wrote this?

Was I overly harsh in saying he was a sadist.

This isn’t me, although it kind of looks like me. I did manage to get it here without much trouble.

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Trump lives in my house and my mind like a giant disease carrying housefly. I just ordered a fly zapper. If only it was that easy to rid the country of this troublesome pest.

 

When it comes to airborne evasive maneuvers Trump reminds me of the common housefly. When one gets in the house my partner won't let me use Raid which she insists is toxic to people (and she hates the smell) and I can't find the fly swatter which I swear used to be in the kitchen cabinet. By chance yesterday I managed to smash one with a tissue box when it lingered too long on a window. Now I am visualizing a giant fly with Trump's face flying around taunting me.

Above is the comment I posted on Dana Milbank’s Washington Post (subscription) column, Trump needs that Qatari 747 — for all his evasive maneuvers, this morning.

Milbank writes:

“There’s a new word that I came up with, which I think is probably the best word,” he announced from the Roosevelt Room. “We’re going to ‘equalize,’ where we’re all going to pay the same.”

He has the best words.

A stickler might point out that, according to the Online Etymology Library, the word “equalize” has been part of the English language since the 1580s. But let us not be sticklers. Let us give Trump credit for the greatest linguistic innovation since the Gulf of America. In fact, let us call him the Great Equalizer.

He included this odd description of the person he says led him to address the high cost of prescrption drugs:

Trump described coming to his prescription-drug epiphany in typically whimsical fashion — because of a rich friend’s complaint. He told reporters on Monday about “a highly neurotic, brilliant businessman, seriously overweight, and he takes the fat — the fat shot drug.” The friend, in Trump’s telling, called from London and told the president “I just paid for this damn fat drug I take.”

One has to wonder whether this person considers it a complement to have Trump refer to him as a fat neurotic.

Milbank doesn’t bring up the plane until he concludes his column as follows:

The latest evidence of this incorruptibility: Trump will accept the gift of a $400 million Boeing 747-8 “flying palace” from the royal family of Qatar — which will go to his library when his presidency ends rather than remain government property.

Trump explained on Monday that it would be “stupid” not to accept this emolument, which he likened to being offered a “gimme” in golf: “When they give you a putt, you say, ‘thank you very much,’ you pick up your ball and you walk to the next hole.”

A $400 million bribe or a two-foot gimme putt? To the Great Equalizer, they are the same.

Every morning Trump is in my house and mind. He’s like a giant housefly. I consider him to be like a giant dung eating disease carrying housefly (see reference). I just took the photo below of him no doubt feeling like royalty, for example. 

If I knew I was going to write this when a managed to send that fly to insect Heaven I probably would have taken a picture. Instead I had to make a photoshop.

I just ordered one of those fly killing gadgets because you can only buy six packs of the manual ones on Amazon and they are the same price. I had one many years ago and they work very well because when you manage to trap a fly in a corner or against a wall they electrocute themselves by flying into the grid.

If only it was as easy as using a gadget like this to zap Trump and his MAGA minions out of our lives. I don’t want them to die. I just don’t want them destroying American democracy. 

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Eventually Trump will say "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," only for him the torpedoes will be nothing more than Nerf balls.

 

Trump may or may not know that it was David Farragut (pictured in the old drawing used in a WWI recruitment post, shown above) who is alleged to have said “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” or something like this. (You can read the history of this here and also here. 

During the Civil War water mines were called torpedoes. 

Farragut was fearless and when leading the Union fleet in the Battle of Mobile Bay, which the Union won, he demonstrated bravery.

Suffice to say that Donald Trump is no David Farragut although he likes to identify himself with real and fictional heroes.

There are many true stories, and certainly fictional ones, of soldiers and sailors prevailing even though they were against overwhelming odds.

Rambo and other make believe characters dodge machine gun bullets and Trump actually had a real bullet miss him. While he didn’t dodge a bullet, he had the presence of mind to turn the near miss to use this advantage by striking a defiant pose.

Currently Trump is testing the limits of his power. He says that he’s not sure whether he has to obey court orders. He can’t wait until he knows orders that go against him aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.

With a GOP controlled Congress he doesn’t have to worry about defying this branch of government. He intends to make sure his power is so absolute that even if the Democrats control Congress in two years they will be a paper tiger.

Today he wanted to come across as a man of the people by putting on a show as someone who cared about people struggling with high drug prices. There will be a time when he doesn’t even care about bothering with such performances. I can see an advisor suggesting that he do something to remind the people what a great president he is and him saying he’d rather play golf or fly in his palatial Air Force One to some country where he’ll be treated like royalty. I can see a time when Trump tires of governing and even faking that he’s doing this.

As far as public opinion, for him this is already like water off a duck’s back. If millions of people take to the streets and protest as long as they stay away from his properties he may not even order his armed thugs to deal with them.

There will be a point in the next year or two when Trump realizes that the torpedoes fired to thwart his dictatorial ambition are nothing more than Nerf balls fired from a plastic gun.

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