Courting Trouble

I remember one Fourth of July years ago down in Santa Barbara, we were hanging out in the war zone known as Ledbetter Beach, where trenches are dug like World War I and Roman Candles and M-80s whiz by at a constant, fear-inducing rate, and I stumbled across a small American flag. “Haha!” I thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny to light this thing on fire?” No sooner had I put match to cloth when one in our group, in a show of patriotic fervor a tad too passionate for the situation, pulled a Rick Monday and grabbed the flag from my hand and ran off down the beach, saving it from the flames of irony. I eventually got the miniature banner back from him and singed it with a few strategic flames before nailing it to his front door later that evening.

[Before you go all "U-S-A! U-S-A!" on me and get up in my grill about burning the stars-and-stripes, let me be clear: I believe I have a First Amendment right to do whatever I damn well please with the flag, including wave it, wear it, trash it, flush it, stick it on my car and/or burn it. That's the freedom our soldiers fought and died for, not your non-existent "right" to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own private property. End of story.]

I mention this tale only as a lead in to what I believe is a brilliant means of dealing with these idiot teabaggers aiming to hijack September 12 as a protest day for irrational patriotism and lily white, racist exclusionism. Yes, thanks to Glenn Beck and his melon-headed minions, “9/12” has become a red letter day on the ”Tea Party” calendar. This year, the yahoos plan to hold rallies across the nation beseeching the brainless to vote against Democrats (as well as any sentient Republicans, natch) in the November elections.

Given the racist underpinnings of the Tea Party movement – manifest most clearly in their repugnant opposition to the largely centrist policies of nation’s first black president – satirical blogger General JC Christian is proposing that liberals show up at next month’s 9/12 rallies prepared to Burn the Confederate Flag:

[The] General says he hopes Burn The Confederate Flag Day will expose what he says are the racial motivations of the tea party movement. The logistics are simple: protesters are urged to show up to the rallies and, if local laws allow a fire to be set, light a Confederate flag (or whatever approximation of one they can get their hands on -- the blogger told me he's not picky.) If laws don't allow the flag to be burned in a public place, the protesters are urged to show up with a singed flag they burned at home and display it prominently.

Clearly, given the mental instability of most teabaggers, this could lead to some angry confrontations, but what a brilliant means of calling these people to account for their shallow ideology and its flatly racist cornerstones. Imagine the sight of these dunderheaded fools rushing to save the nation’s most widely accepted symbol of racism, a flag black Americans still view as a prominent banner of slavery and oppression. Be careful what you wish for teabaggers, that corner you’re painting yourselves in is getting smaller by the day.

We’ll have more on this as the protest approaches.