How quickly they forget! Just after the terrorist attack that destroyed the world trade center and killed nearly 3,000 people, this nation responded by flying our flag on every porch, flag pole, fence post and mail box. The demand for flags was so great that all the stores rapidly sold out.
Every year the Madison County Greys, Sons of Confederate Veterans buys a booth at the Madison County Fair in Comer. The fair always runs the last week of September.
Each year, we offer flags for sale as a part of our camp fund-raising efforts, so I had a full list of flag suppliers. I was able to find flags for our booth. Half way through the fair, we sold out, and I made a day trip to a warehouse to restock, and we sold those.
It was beautiful to drive down any road in Madison and neighboring counties and see flags flying. They delivered the message that we could not be terrorized into giving up our national symbols. Modern and historic U.S. flags were on display anyway you looked.
But by spring, it was clear that the instant patriotism was over. You see, those flags flew all winter, in rain, snow and ice. By spring, they were faded and ripped to shreds. Very few people bothered to replace them or to take them down. By the first anniversary of the attacks, most of them were gone. When I looked down the streets, all I saw were a few red and blue fragments on fence posts and mailboxes. My pride in my community declined with the flags. The sadness I felt for my nation gradually gave way to sadness for the neglected flags.
That is not always the case. Here and there you will find a bright new flag waving defiantly in the wind, usually in the yard of one of our veterans. Several of our cities put out flag displays on patriotic and memorial holidays. They appear from place to place during Independence Day and Memorial Day.
In my opinion, we ought to have flags flying all over our nation every day. We are still at war, and our fighting men are still in harm’s way. Every one of them wear a flag patch on their shoulder to make it clear that the sacrifices they are making are for America. The least we can do is to make sure we have a bright new flag at our homes and businesses to express our support of their battles for our freedoms.
The flag is the symbol of our nation. It deserves to be flown over every home, business and public office, and military post, and to be changed as often as necessary to keep it clean and bright.
Let’s keep it flying!
Frank Gillispie is founder of The Madison County Journal. His e-mail address is frank@frankgillispie.com. His website can be accessed at http://www.frankgillispie.com/gillispieonline.
The terrorists won. Only it's the super rich ruling class that are the real terrorists.
Vote Deal in November!
You need to get a little educated before you make statements like this.
Iran - the sponsor of terrorism in the world is gone as it existed in 2001.
Oh yeah!! the super rich terrorist - I have one question for you, "How many jobs have you ever gotten from a poor man?"
Stop watching so many movies and get educated
Now, gimme some more money for some more flags and be a "patriotic American."
Riiiiiiiight.
Somebody just repeats FOX News sounds like to me. If the rich create the jobs where are they my friend ?
Perhaps they might just use OPM . Kind of like the Wall Street Bankers . They take a risk and win they
keep the profit. Take a risk and lose and the working class have to bail them out. People who believe that money
breeds money just devalue how the real wealth is produced . Labor is the only way any wealth can be produced.
Its like somebody thinking that they can have apples without an apple tree. The tree is the labor and the apple is the
fruit of that labor.
Long ago even gold was a worthless rock in the ground until the labor dug it up and somebody placed a value on it.
At one point even that super rich person wasn't rich and had to perform some kind of labor. If not, then that just proves
Freedom Fighters point . People that really believe that the super rich create jobs so people can have a job probably also
think the farmer grows a crop or the baker bakes because they want you to have food on the table. Not so . They do it to
produce money for themselves so that they might be able to buy the things they need. Same as the super rich they aren't
doing it so anybody can have a job that's just the byproduct of their efforts.
We all know that the more money the government prints the less its worth that's exactly why gold has climbed to such a high
price . The gold really isn't worth anymore than it was 5 years ago but the worthless paper money has been so over printed devaluing
its worth ,that it takes twice as much paper money to buy the same amount as it did say 5 years ago. So by the super rich being , lets
say super greedy and hoarding all the paper money means there is less to go around and they have to print even more making it worth even less.
When US dollars a kept in offshore accounts or sent out of country for what ever the reason then as I have said there is less to go around here.
So lets fire up the ole printing press ,print more and create more inflation because that's the vicious system we now live under. Besides who needs
that much money anyway?\
If somebody thinks they need so much to live to have a good descent life why do think its ok to pay the labor that produced it in the first
place so little and that should suffice for them ? Can you say double standard?
As John Taylor of Caroline said of the paper money banking system and the financial credit system and I quote
(The paper feudalism of the money traders only made it possible for the commercial few to prey upon the many).
Something else that is another misconception being spread around today about the housing market is that people just bought houses that they couldn't afford.
Well who was it that built all those over valued houses in a market where the demand didn't exist and there wasn't enough people that could afford them?
Who was it that loaned all of the OPM so that those houses could be built and why ? Once again it was the speculaters along with the banking system ,
and I might add they have always been a contributing factor to all the banking crisis in the US and it always hits the little man the hardest .Unemployment
as in the great depression and just about ever other recession we have ever had in this country since the conception of the paper money banking and financial credit system.
What it boils down to is the get rich greedy side of human nature another sad piece of the human condition