This is how I started my morning with a cup of coffee. The same way I always start first thing on the World Wide Web with all of my favorite comedian thought leaders. John Oliver only does his show once a week and focuses the entire show on a single topic. This was about the Confederate Flag. Posted on Youtube yesterday it has had more than 350k views. It is social commentary playing upon the illogical, unreasonable and often stupidity of what is wrong with our society and requires correction.
It is not a sad day that comedians have become thought leaders in our nation. It is a happy day in a sad way.
The flag has been in the news often lately. Controversy over the Stars and Stripes has followed on the heals of the Stars and Bars. It all brought to my mind the game we played at Boy Scout Camp when I was a kid. I haven’t thought about it since I played it. It’s origin dates back to the Civil War:
https://www.collinsflags.com/blog/archives/3062 A Google search produces many other explanatory links. The game is worth some analysis to reveal subtle social implications from a number of different aspects. If I looked at all the links the Google search provided I might find some focus on and examination of those subtle implications as they relate to our current controversy. In a broader sense it is about the power of symbols. Symbols are cultural abstractions of the real world, or whatever “Real World” we wish to create. “Real” in the broad meaning encompassing the “Imaginary” world that we declare to be “Real” for whatever human purpose it serves…Good or Bad with associated “Real not Imaginary” consequences in Physical Reality time and space.
This is my closer look at the game of Capture the Flag. Arbitrary assignment of boys (girls ever play this?) to two teams. Each team defending their flag, attacking the other team with the intent to reduce their numbers (put them in jail) to gain numerical superiority as a strategy to overwhelm the enemy and capture their flag as a definition of victory,
When I played the game as a Boy Scout there were about 50 or more on each side. It was like a game of football with no protection. There were massed rushes at the opponents like at Gettysburg. It was rough. The rougher it got….the rougher it continued to get until we were hating the other side to the point of ruthlessness . The intent became harm and I don’t remember any referees. In hindsight it created a situation where the bully emerged as leader and gave a sanctioned form of acting out deeper anti-social attitudes. It was all based on a symbol. No intrinsic meaning or purpose to the symbol other than to capture it and win.
What I do recall from the game other than hitting and getting hit is that after the game it seemed to me that the Boy Scout leaders on the sidelines watching the game seemed to enjoy it very much. Before it started they were very enthusiastic in explaining the rules. Some scouts had played it before and knew the unspoken rules as well as the opportunity to act our aggression in a game of rules that really had few rules other than overpower the opponent with cunning and brute force in whatever way possible.
In the Navy we essentially played the same game except the two sides were Blue Forces and Red Forces in a Battle Problem scenario. War has few rules and they are nominal. A “Free Fire Zone” has no rules at all. The battlefield where everything and everyone on the opposing side is a target without any regard to life, law or human ethics, belief or any other abstract social value contrary to killing and destroying for what? The symbol we honor?
In hindsight I wonder just how much influence a simple game had on my formation of social values regarding conflict management resolution. What is the purpose of force as a righteous source of authoritarian power to achieve an abstract objective symbolized only by a flag? Wave the flag and the action diverts attention from the ball…..like a shell game. Death and destruction is the result. Did the game precondition the expression of dedication to waving symbols detached from their moral fundamentals requiring capacity for personal judgment and decision? Morals are rules as well as rules of the game. Morals are abstracted created Objects. Waving a symbolic representation of those abstracted objects is a functional action with arbitrarily linked result based on intent.
The “Art of the Deal” begins to look like the “Art of Division” Divide participants up into two opposing teams and then watch the conflict for personal gain. The “Art” is to manage function to control Objects. It takes a perverted skill to divide people up into two opposing groups that clash for the benefit of those doing the division to play a game by their rules.
We think that “We the People” created the game as well as establish the rules of fair play that dictated how two sides of the same Congress would play for our benefit in the Pursuit of Happiness.
Ain’t so.
Masters of division are pulling the strings of a game of their design that results in the citizens of our country playing their game of Capture the Flag. Their secret is to focus on function to control objects. In the Information Age that is Old School control. Objects (real or abstract) are the foundation of structure from which actions follow.
Having structured a system intended for use to loose sight of our objective they have cleverly induced us to re-doube our efforts to capture a flag symbol detached from true logic and reason.
The Confederate Stars and Bars is an example of how it was done, continues to function.
The Stars and Stripes is also an symbolic example of something we are too well indoctrinated and protected by “patriotism” to see what it being used for. Not coming together in the common good but being divided for the good of the few.
Oh Say Can We See……protocol and tradition calls for us to face the flag as we sing those words. When the National Anthem is played on a military base protocol demands everyone to stop and face the flag. Sit at attention in a car. (Used to have to get out and stand at attention unless on a bus?) If no flag is visible then we are required to face the direction where a flag is known to be. Music if unknown.
Oh, If Only We Could See…..What So Proudly We Hail…... what this Symbol is all about…and take the knee to that for which it stands…..as a protest against that for which it is being used to divide us.
Every Nation has a Flag that has been used to induce so many to die in its honor as a symbol. The Cross is a flag that has been used but one that a National Flag has in truth flown above even if the flag of the church (called a pennant in the Navy, another name for a flag) is the only one allowed by protocol to fly above it. It is that easy to induce allegiance by those that manipulate symbols as well as the truth.
The Star Spangled Banner is an old beloved tune that needs new words to tell us the truth for which it stands just like new lyrics of "Both Sides Now” tell us where our Deal in Chief stands now as he waves the flag of division.
The Pledge needs revision too: "I pledge allegiance (delete “to the flag”) to the principals we have chosen to guide ourselves united as a country”….followed by our guiding principals..Liberty and justice for all, etc. (delete under God) Our best chosen principals are self evident and are our god that we have created.
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