Monday, June 22, 2015

flags

Speaking of, when it comes to design I can think of no other flag that tops Japan for its flag and for its apparently inborn natural sense of graphic design that applies to everything else especially textiles. Their flag is the best flag imaginable in terms of graphic design. Top honors.


Then, when as emperor-worshipers they decide as a nation to go full-on hog-ass wild, blam. 


Sixteen rays. Is there anything more graphically perfect? 

Oh man, I'm going to pass out. 

Hang on.

I needed a trigger warning back there. 

That image makes me short circuit. It does. This nasty thing, perfect as it is, really does need to be banned. It has bad connotations. It stirs bad memories. When people see it they (we) get upset. I cannot rest until this flag is banned. I think I have to throw up. 

Please, I beg you, it's time to make this flag go away and don't even display it in museums, and don't teach this stuff in schools either. There's no point to it.

15 comments:

edutcher said...

According to some estimates, 30 million people (hey, they were brown and yellow, so they don't count) died at the hands of people serving under that flag.

Most of those who survived the war and could be charged as war criminals walked, including the commanders of the camps in Manchuria which developed, tested (on prisoners, natch), and deployed biological warfare weapons in China and planned to use them against the US.

For those interested, that's twice as many as the Narzis murdered.

chickelit said...

The flag belongs to the symmetry point group know as D2h, a favorite of mine because so does the ethylene molecule. The Confederate Battle flag also has D2h symmetry.

William said...

I think the Japanese flag long ante dated the really bad shit. The Nazi and USSR flags were there only for the atrocities. I don't put the Confederate flag in the same class as the Nazi and Soviet flags, but, in point of fact, that flag represents secession and slavery. You can claim it means more than that, but you cannot deny that it is the flag of secession and slavery. It would be well to let it go.

chickelit said...

The nazi flag has C2h symmetry. The Soviet and the American flags have only CĪƒ symmetry.

edutcher said...

Secession was guaranteed as the final escape from a tyrannical government in The Federalist Papers, bolstered by the IX and X Amendments, and slavery was an accepted institution from the dawn of man.

To say, the Confederates bear some special onus is rather hypocritical (speaking generically).

Besides, anybody who tries to sell the PC idea the war was all about slavery is blowing smoke.

Consider that old standby, the protective tariff.

I get the impression a majority of the people who stop by here are 35 - 50 (YMMV). If so, they probably never were taught in school about how much the protective tariff figured in causing the war.

I got it as early as 5th grade (1958 - 59), but I'll bet it isn't taught today and probably hasn't been for 40 years and it was one of several causes taught as part of understanding the war had a great many causes.

The Confederate flag is part of history, no more or less. In the right place and time, I think it's perfectly valid to fly it. To say anybody who supports that idea is some sort of traitor to the Union is, well, Ritmoesque.

Rabel said...

A minor point, but one worth noting in appreciation of Chip's post, is that one reason, among many, that the Confederate Battle Flag became popular and remains difficult to give up is that it is a really good looking flag.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

"There is no point to it"

Chip almost got away with it 😆

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I had a weird dream Bill Cosby showd up at the supermarket where I was getting something don't know what.

I said hey Bill Cosby how are you?

As he nodded politely other people started coming over to get his attention or whatever.

It occurred to me you should get a selfie with him, by that time I was out in the parking lot.

When he came out I approached him and asked to get a selfie with him he didn't say yes or no. He answered the way Bill Cosby does making some jocular remarks.

And then I had trouble finding the camera ap and getting it up and running, Bill veered off away from me and I woke up.

ricpic said...

The Union Jack ain't chopped liver either. Designwise that is.

Orrey G.Rantor said...

Ed, they didn't teach it to me in CA or OR in the 80s and 90s nor in college, even in a basic 200 level survey course. A course that was required for all history majors and many others took it for an easy A to fit some graduation requirement.

I learned it mostly after college through independent reading. You have to look not just at the 10-12 years pre civil war but the previous 30-50 years. It was considered quite fair for new england to talk of leaving the union in 1812 but apparently not so much in 1861 despite decades of political strife topped off with Dred Scot case/slavery issues.

Sounds rather similar to today and another form of slavery, socialized medicine.

Rabel said...

Lem, the confused memories are just a side effects of the roofies. Check your phone to see if you took any candid photos. Bill still has a lot of money, but you need to get in line as soon as you can.

Meade said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rcocean said...

The Confederate flag was popular because the Civil war wasn't only about slavery it was about states rights and local control and a lot of lost cause mythology.

I'm just glad that people are FINALLY taking a stand against Slavery.

I hear its making a comeback.

rcocean said...

BTW, it funny to go on Civil war blogs and read liberals trying to one-up each other on how much they HATE, HATE, HATE slavery. It always go like this:

Liberal 1 - its a good thing the CW ended that awful institution of slavery.
Liberal 2 - Awful? It was despicable
Liberal 3 - Despicable? It was evil!
Liberal 4 - As evil as the Holocaust
Liberal 5 - Worst than the Holocaust.
Liberal 6 - An evil Holocaust that went on for 400 years!!

And they'll go like this for pages unless someone changes the subject.

rcocean said...

And don't make snarky comment about taking a brave stand against an evil that's been dead for 150 years. They'll call you a racist and ask you if you support slavery.