Sunday, June 1, 2008

Flying the flag

In North Korea it is mandatory that you wear a pin badge everyday, typically a red one with a picture of the Great Leader, Kim il Sung. Lose your badge and woe betide you; a gulag awaits.
In the coming week Barack Obama should be anointed as the Democratic candidate for November’s presendential election. For so long he managed to campaign on the ‘change for good’ mantra, claiming he was different to old Washington He had managed to eschew wearing the frankly fascist US pin badge so beloved of the current White House resident. Yet when Obama’s campaign hit a sticky spot six weeks back with his wacky pastor, Jeremiah Wright spouting off, his opponents attacked Obama’s patriotism – cue the stars and stripes pin badge on his crisp suits. A small but revealing aspect of the depressive, constrained state of US politics.

2 comments:

spinoza said...

Yeah, there was a day when Chicago folksinger John Prine could sing:

Your flag decal won't get you into Heaven anymore
It's already overcrowded from your dirty little war

spinoza said...

Cool blog. You are well on the way to making the proper noun "Flash Harry" into a verb with tense, gerund and a past participle, as in "I Flash Harry'd her/I said I'd marry her/She was from Kashgar/I was a-Flash Harrying in the back of beyond/In the arse of beyond I was a roaring boy:/But she was Flash Harry-ed/And me she pursu-ed/Back to Belgravia by way of Bengal/Back to Belgravia, by way of old Bengal.