On Flag Day, signaling our nation's distress

Sorry, Mom

By Tim Boivin

Every day and night, the American Flag proudly flies above my stoop.

On Sunday – Flag Day – I will fly it in distress.

And I will do it again on the 250th Birthday of our Country, July 4th.

I don’t come to this decision lightly. I served almost nine years in the U.S. Army.

My own mother, whose brother fought in Korea – the Forgotten War – and came back a changed man, opposes my stand.

I know many veterans will oppose this.

I also know many veterans who plan to do the same as I do. The stakes are that high.

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According to the U.S. Flag Code, the flag should never be flown upside down “except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property”.

I could provide literally thousands of reasons why we are in extreme danger today, but I will let my years of antifascist writing stand on its own.

^{The author (far right) serving in the Color Guard at the Remove the Regime Protest in D.C.}

In a nutshell, the lives of millions of people across the world are threatened by the actions of the current U.S. government administration. And the use of our tax dollars to corruptly line the pockets of government officials and their enablers has never been so brazen, never been so brutal, in the entirety of the 250 years of this once-great country’s existence.

Now, the same traitors who staged the January 6th insurrection are hijacking two of the most reverent days of our history – desecrating the front lawn of the White House, the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool, and the National Mall with the most grotesque and obnoxious display of lame machismo jingoism in the history of our nation.

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This continued desecration of our most hallowed institutions, of our standing in the world, of our moral reason for being – in broad daylight by greedy conmen, creepy misogynists and pedophiles, criminal actors, and corporate money changers in the temple of democracy – constitutes a direct threat to so many people around the world…to all our property…and to the very soul as a country.

May the day soon come when I do not feel obliged to do this. But if this current state of our nation isn’t distressful, I don’t know what is.

So I will fly the Flag upside down on Sunday.

And again on July 4th.

Sorry, Mom.