A particularly shuddering comment of Walter Winchell's during WWII

[greekspeak]

When I was a younger guy, I used to listen to taped recordings of old radio programs I purchased commercially or was given as gifts. On one tape, there is a statement from Walter Winchell's report that has taken on fresh meaning for me over the past couple of years. Now, I have heard Walter Winchell called the Rush Limbaugh of his day. I have heard precious little of him, but this line is unsettling:

"We have at least one thing to be thankful for tonight...that we still salute a flag, and not a shirt."

Winchell here was referring to the brownshirts of Germany, and all the Sieg Heiling crap that went on in Germany in that day. But what is the difference if the piece of cloth is on a body or on a flag pole if we blindly salute it, or salute it out of fear, or out of a frothing, hateful nationalism? None. Absolutely none. It was true 65 years ago, and it is true today. Winchell's words chill me to the bone, because what he said is what so many Americans are saying today. Salute or else. Salute or get out. Salute or you hate the troops. Salute or... What rubbish.

[peacetalksforall]

It's amazing to realize the depth of hate that drives all of these

campaigns - all resulting in a lot of death and torture.

Has our peace leader risen, yet?

[sintax]

1. The flag won't protect you; it's in the wrong hands

The flag won't protect you; it's in the wrong hands

By Luciana Bohne

08/13/05 "ICH" -- -- Across my lawn, I can see an American flag waving in my neighbor's backyard. Mr. Smith (not his name, of course) is a nice man but he's 95 years old, and I can't take issue with him. I can't tell him that the sporting of the flag, at this time, is tantamount to saying, "I am a fool. Traitors run the country in our name. They are taking our money from the treasury and spending it on a shortcut to world domination through war.

The one in Iraq costs something like $200 million a day. Our troops come back in coffins no one is allowed to see. The president does not attend their funerals. He mocks their death with a jest, amusing the press by pretending to look for elusive weapons of mass destruction (WMD) under his Oval Office desk. The vice president is planning to nuke Iran should there be another 9/11. Meanwhile, Iraqis, living and dead, swim in a river of boiling blood. If I fly the flag, I'm saying all this is all right by me. Poor flag, to be raised in a time like this! Wouldn't it be more respectful to tuck it away for more honorable service in better times?

Better times? Time to stop fooling myself. The idiocy is contagious.
When were there better times? Since the birth of this nation, it has engaged in more than 200 armed interventions around the globe.

Since 1945, a conservative death count for US adventures abroad can easily tally up to 6 million. Easily! Circa 3 million in Vietnam alone; then there's Indonesia, Haiti, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, just off the top of my head. Plenty of torture, too: Argentina, Brazil, Egypt. Oh, you know the sad litany.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9754.htm

[greekspeak]

4. I loved this article!

I wrote to the writer for talking like a sensible human being rather than an automaton.

[Straight Shooter]

2. It's weird. There was a time I truly loved the American flag.

Now its image has been so distorted, exploited, manipulated and abused by bush and his followers, that every time I see our flag I cringe. They have stolen something very precious from me, and I will never ever again see our flag without hearing the drumbeats of war. For that, I curse bush forever.

[sintax]

7. The US flag has always been

cumulative.

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop.  Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing.  One day it is over his head."

[Cleita]

3. I'm old enough to remember Walter Winchell.

My father used to listen to him on his shortwave. Walter was tabloid. He covered the society scene, Hollywood and the politicians if there was something juicy in the way of gossip. He was very opinionated too. Somehow though I think Winchell wouldn't have been appreciated to be compared to Limbaugh, a liar. Winchell did consider himself a journalist, even if a bit on the yellow side. The caca Limbaugh wallows in would disgust even Winchell.

[greekspeak]

5. Like I say, I know little about Winchell. I was just repeating hearsay

about him when I said he was the Limbaugh of his day. Whatever he stood for, that flag comment is especially creepy in today's atmosphere of jingoistic patriotism.

[Cleita]

6. Not really, Back then we were all proud to be Americans

and pledge to the flag, a symbol of our once great nation. To be wrapped in it was an honor. Now, that the new fascists have taken it over, I have to agree that I have a problem being proud of any symbol that is American. They took it over and ruined our symbol for everyone.

[DemInDistress]

8. I see the greatest threat to PNAC

will not come from the Iranians but from right here at home.I don't believe Americans will tolerate nuking Tehran or suspending our civil liberties with Martial Law.I can see massive protests some turning into riots.The Bush Crime Family fooled all Americans on 911..The Bush Crime Family tried to fool all America a 2nd time om Jan.2003 in the SOTU,Saddam has wmd's---Saddam can kill us in 45 minutes.That claim fooled only half the country and since those Downing Street Memo's were leaked Bush Crime Family lost 10 points...Any military action in Iran will be the end of this country...FEMA has 600/800 prison camps,many fully staffed and ready for inmates.The Crime Family over these next 3 weeks left of vacation have had some top level meetings with the Military and intelligence.Will America be attacked again???

[wli]

9. I'm not interested in becoming a REX 84 victim...

It's time to emigrate.