Actual flag of the United States: note the size (approximately 1/3 of the long axis, and 1/2 of the short axis), and position of the blue square relative to the stripes; note the number of rows of stars and the pattern of stars in alternating rows; note the number and width of the stripes.
Conservatives are angry all the time. The further to the extreme right, the higher the sustained anger level.
Fact and reason have nothing to do with this anger level. The anger is real; the causes are not.
The condition of perpetual free-floating rage on the right is the result of careful and deliberate priming - read LYING - by the right wing propaganda machine. They tell their gullible little stooges that things are BAD BAD BAD, and without a thought to fact checking a word of it, the right wingers fall into line and foam at the mouth on command.
You tend not to see these stories in the mainstream media, because they don't survive the fact checking process. Tell the truth about these ginned up incidents, no one gets angry. It takes lies to anger the base. It takes lies to unite the base in support of bad candidates as well. There is so much of this propaganda, that the right cannot fully identify why they are so angry - they just know they ARE.
To move on to the latest of these manipulated anger political dramas, specifically about the flag (there are entire separate persistent right wing propaganda themes, memes, or genres, although they do sometimes overlap - black people are thugs, homophobia, Islamophobia, etc.), here are a couple of the more recent ones. The flag propaganda series posts illustrate qualities common to all of the different propaganda themes.
Nothing says patriotism like cars made in Korea........or not. Hey, I'm all for trade, so long as we have an even playing field to compete, but it is an issue in the TPP that we are suffering from some bad provisions of past trade agreements with South Korea, and Kia is just one of the imports that contribute to those problems of lost jobs and trade imbalance.
So in that larger world economics context, I was equal parts angry and amused at the latest two examples of right wing propaganda that usurps legitimate patriotism and hijacks the flag for purposes of propaganda. Both take place in Florida, one in Sunrise, one in West Palm Beach.
Note that there is no upper (viewers) left hand corner of blue (technically a canton) with 50 stars representing 50 states, but rather the blue takes up slightly less than half of the flag. The number of stars in each row, and the arrangement of stars in each row also appear to be incorrect.
photo of the so-called 'American Flags' being flown at the Kia dealership in West Palm Beach.
Moving on to the 'stripes' of the flag, they are the wrong width, and there are more than the 13, representing the original colonies, that appear on our American flag.
These are NOT AMERICAN FLAGS.
This is a form of bunting, which is prohibited by local ordinance, apparently intended to keep dealerships from unduly junking up the municipality.
In contrast, here is what comes out of the right wing propaganda machine to orchestrate the outrage against "evil flag hating liberals":
"The Kia dealership general manager Mike Wangle is definitely a patriot. The whole dealership is standing its ground against some bureaucratic fascists in Florida who evidently hate the American flag. They have cooked up some random, stupid code-enforcement violations to try and strong-arm the dealership into taking down the American flags they are displaying for the Fourth of July. Get this, they are not considering them ‘flags.’ You guys need glasses and a brain enema. These Marxist thugs just don’t want anything displayed that shows a love for America or her history. That’s Progressives for you. Fortunately, the Kia dealership has told them to pound sand. And I hear there’s a lot of sand in Florida.BizPac Review wrote:
The Kia dealership in West Palm Beach faces penalties of up to $1,000 per day for a code-enforcement violation it received from Palm Beach County for displaying six American flags on its property, WPTV reported.Gosh, that sounds terrible.......until you realize these are not actually American flags, and this is a fairly identified violation of municipal ordinances, reasonably regulating local commerce, and the right wing nuts own pictures prove the municipality is correct.
The county said the dealership is violating a[n ordinance] that prohibits the display of pennants, balloons, banners and other signs made of lightweight fabric, plastic or similar substances. (added emphasis mine - DG)
“We’re just trying to show our patriotism,” dealership general manager Mike Wangle told WPTV.
Real patriots fly real flags. Real patriots know what a real U.S. flag LOOKS LIKE.
On social media where I first came across this story, NOT ONE CONSERVATIVE realized this was not a correct US flag. But every single one of the people who commented was OUTRAGED at how liberals HATE America, blah blah blah blah blah. Anger! Outrage! Factually false, but no one notices, because the emotion has replaced reason before reason can get a start.
Our next case of flag porn /propaganda is another Florida Kia dealership, this one in a town called Sunrise.
This one is from May of this year, via the Sunrise Sentinel.
New car dealership in Sunrise aims to fly American flag highBlah blah blah : liberal marxist socialist communist anti-Americans, blah blah blah - government overreach and political correctness. Consider the conservative outrage over flag flying as read. Not fair, not accurate, not legitimate or justified, but it is there and making the right wing nuts mad as hell; mad as hell over NOTHING.
...Car dealer Rick Case, who is in the process of building a new Kia dealership in the city and moving his corporate headquarters from Plantation to Sunrise, wants to fly an American flag on the 5.5-acre property.
The problem is that the city code allows only a 25-foot flag pole, while Case wants to put up a 120-foot flag pole to match the size of some of his other dealerships, like in Davie and Weston.
"I am so proud of [being in America] that I want to fly an American flag in my new dealership on Sunrise Boulevard, the entrance to this wonderful city off the Sawgrass Expressway," Case said to commissioners at a City Commission meeting. "I would like [the city] to consider letting me fly an American flag, as I do in all my other dealerships around the country."
..."I have no problem with anyone flying an American flag; as a veteran, I support that principle 110 percent," Assistant Deputy Mayor Don Rosen said, "but I don't want to run into a competition where you put a flag so large or a pole so large that it now forces [other car dealerships] into a back and forth… but I think it's something that can be worked out."
Commissioners agreed to have city staff evaluate options for allowing a larger flag pole, including finding out what other surrounding dealerships would do if they also had the option for a larger flag.
"It wouldn't be fair to just allow [Case] to have a flag on the property," Commissioner Joey Scuotto said. "If this is something we [allow], we'll have to allow it [for everyone else]."
