Soon, Old Glory will have to be born in the land of the free and not merely flying over it.
Congress has passed a proposal to require the federal government to purchase only American flags that have been completely manufactured in the U.S. The U.S. imports millions of American flags from overseas, mostly from China, and the sponsors of the proposal said it’s time for American flags to originate in the country they represent.
Supporters of the proposal, led by Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, said the change is more than just symbolic — they believe it will support American jobs and manufacturers while preserving the nation’s most recognized banner.
To be fair, it is extremely weird to imagine the U.S. government buying U.S. flags from China. Like, I’m not some patriot flag-code respecting type, but it does feel like a powerful metaphor to be importing our symbol of freedom from abroad. It’s some severely bad optics at a minimum.
Sounds very american to me.
I’ve always said that “made in China” is way more American than “made in the USA”.
Yep, even giving a shit where a piece of cloth was made is fucking weird
but it does feel like a powerful metaphor to be importing our symbol of freedom from abroad
Freedom to buy from the lowest cost provider!
I don’t get why people are tilted about this. The government should always buy US made unless the item literally cannot be found from a US manufacturer.
Tax payer money should stay in the country when possible. Yeah it’s a small issue but I doubt much time was spent on this
So, who’s the donor friend who owns flag manufacturing facilities?
The current number of congresspersons, 435, was created in 1913. In the 1920 census the US population was 29,662,053.
29,662,053/435 ~= in 1913 there were 68,188 persons per member of Congress.
In 2020 the population was 331,449,281
331,449,281/435 ~= in 2020 there were 761,952 persons per member of Congress.
One person can’t represent three quarters of a million people in a national assembly. That isn’t representation.
But do you think American flags should be made in America?!?
You think those numbers are bad? Wait till you look up the averages for each US Senator.
Perhaps one day we’ll finally ratify Article the First.
Capitalism. Until we don’t like particular ramifications of capitalism and then we legislate nationalisation of particular industries….because.
Truly the invisible hand of the market at work.
Harris was referring to the visit she made to the Central California Women’s Facility in July, a visit on which I tagged along. It was a surreal experience to watch dozens of women, mostly women of color, at work stations inside of the country’s largest prison for women, laying out and printing fabric and then dyeing it royal blue. It was just as surreal, if not more so, to hear prison officials point out that these flags would one day fly atop every state and federal building in California, describing this with something almost adjacent to pride.
U! S! A! U! S! A! U! S! A!
Considering this only covers US Government purchased flags, this IS the invisible hand of the market. It’s a consumer choosing where they want to purchase products.
And it is t nationalizing the industry. They still will be privately produced. And individual Americans can still by Chinese flags.
Hello young person, do you know why you should care about the government? Me neither. JFC can we address something that actually matters you fucking empty uniforms. Sorry. Great share, and thanks!
Yeah but take the small wins where you can get them. This is a good thing and we should celebrate even if for a short moment.
No. Don’t celebrate performative bullshit. Especially if it’s wrapped in nationalism. Because then all you’ll ever get is performative bullshit wrapped in nationalism. You take this, put it in your pocket, say thanks, and pick the pitch fork right back up.
my grandfather heard that crock of horse shit his whole childhood and when he grew into an adult he told his kids the same lie
Baby steps we will get there on small victories.
am not telling my kids the same lie
shit does not get better because some less than quarter ass solution got implemented
I hope you never have kids if you’re going to tell them they have nothing to look forward to.
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Nobody needs foreign propaganda when Congress feeds us literal crumbs as the answer to offshoring. Yay we created 10 jobs. This is the fucking Senate. Not a random Appalachian county council.
In the US today:
- women can vote
- people of all races can vote
- people of all races can own property
- there is no (official) slavery
- gay people can marry (for now)
- your boss isn’t allowed to fire you because you are gay
- your boss isn’t allowed to fire you for religion
- we got the 40 hour work week and weekends
- child labor is (mostly) outlawed
- women can go to college
- prohibitions like on alcohol and marijuana are slowly fading away
- the grocery store has avocados all year long
But yeah, nothing ever changes incrementally. All those activists who worked their whole lives to peacefully bring these things about, well, that was a waste.
ETA: I’m aware that the end of slavery was not quite “peaceful.” I stand by the point that things are getting better all the time, and that it is mostly from incremental gains.
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They’re literally purging the voting rolls right now.
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They’re literally purging the voting rolls right now.
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You sure can own stuff. Good luck buying it.
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There is official slavery. Read the 13th Amendment again.
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Your Boss can fire you for anything at any time.
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Your Boss can fire you for anything at any time.
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The 40 hour work week is weaponized against hourly employees and non existent for salary employees.
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Child labor is literally back on the menu in red states. And unenforced except for under age immigrants in blue states.
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College requires selling yourself into lifetime debt.
This list wasn’t incremental. When these things happened they were big fucking deals and not baby steps. If we wanted to outlaw child labor again we’d invent some stupid scheme where kids had to spend increasingly less time at work until employers voluntarily stopped hiring them. Instead of how we actually did it. Not only have we allowed all of this to be seriously degraded in the post Reagan era, we’ve forgotten how we actually got this shit done in the first place. We didn’t ask nicely and accept baby steps.
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Perpetual children mindests and their need to have instant gratification is making it so that no victory is a victory. Sad is no fun and life should only be a party.
Nothing was done in an instant and that is somehow unacceptable. I just want to feel good about a victory for like a minute without chucklefucks who have a very wrong idea of history claiming it’s unprecedented to change.
If people actually knew how long the women’s suffrage movement lasted and how many turns it took they would likely be very upset and also actually aware of how slow reality often is to move in global ways. Heck women in Utah were granted voting access and then had it taken away after they voted for polygamy against what men thought would happen.
People have to actually participate and work little by little but that’s so much work and often it’s filled with backsliding and failures and it hurts to lose. So it’s easier to pretend it should just happen overnight and that’s how people change. It’s bullshit and storybook thinking mostly.
I do wish this was the case but wishing is to action what masturbating is to sex, fun but not the real thing.women can vote until some police officer gets them on trumped up charges because he is on a prolife kick
people of all races can vote as long as they are allowed to new ways to ban people from voting are made up all the time
yes people of all races can own property if they can afford to $7.25 is still the minimum wage average US citizen’s purchasing power has not increased since about the 60s
corporations use prison slave labor all the time even McDonalds
yes for now marriage equality is a thing and Harris is the only loud supporter on this so far that is in the public eye this much
in right to work states yes they can
again in a right to work state a boss could fire you because he is having a bad day
but it takes more than 40 hours to afford just food and housing
if the people grow up in an environment filled with pollution and negatively they may get to college
justice for some is justice delayed it should be fifty states under one union
no cannabis prohibitions are ramping up not getting better bad products have flooded the market due to lack of regulations and lack of lab tested products
again with the lack of worker’s rights and stagnation of pay yes only if you got the funds for those avocados
Just FYI, you’re mixing up right to work and at-will employment. Right to work has nothing to do with with being fired.
Right to work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law
TFW you share a link that decimates your own point.
Did you read the article you linked to? Because it doesn’t support your point at all.
again in a right to work state a boss could fire you because he is having a bad day
In the United States, right to work has nothing to do with at-will employment. Succinctly, right-to-work laws prevent unionized workplaces from requiring employees who opt not to join the union (an option required by the Taft-Hartley Act) to pay toward the cost of union representation. That’s it. It’s all in the article you linked.
Even the international law definition has nothing to do with at-will employment.
they believe it will support American jobs and manufacturers
What, like 3 jobs?
Yeah but they’re going to spend $10,000 per flag that costs $0.10 to make. Gotta keep lining those contractor pockets!
They will probably be made by slaves, I mean prisoners.
I remember all the cheap Chinese bumper stickers that people were slapping on their cars…an American flag with the words “THESE COLORS DON’T RUN”
Within a couple months most of the flag color had faded. It was so funny seeing a light pink and blue American flag with that contradictory phrase over it.
It will support one company that gets the GSA contract.
We have so much shit going on in this country and this is what we’re worried about?
Ohio, Maine, come get your senators. They’re drunk.
Im pretty sure Ohio is also drunk, and Maine is too busy dealing with eldritch entities and whatever is pushed out of the Maritime into the US.
Maybe they should just elect one of those next time?
Yeah but elect Ygndolsofuk doesnt quite roll of the tongue, and im pretty sure the abominations from the Maritime cant talk after being curbstomped so as to stop them from whispering in folks brains.
“Don’t be a shmuck, vote Ygndolsofuk!” works pretty well tbh.
“Oh… okay. But did you want to do anything about that giant list of actual REAL problems over there behind you on the table?”
Well thank fuck they’ve started addressing such important issues.
You mean the end of outsourced labor and production of local goods? (For this product and potential work towards more happy now?) A key issue for may people on both sides of the aisle as seen by the bipartisan support?
Yeah I guess it is good then.
Edit: I was being as exaggerated as everyone else saying a flag will enrich a single person in here but now people want to be pedantic when pointing out this is a thing to support being worked towards. Of course. Misery loves company right?
Not quite the end, but certainly a step in the right direction.
How about we just fly fewer flags. I live in the center of the US and don’t need to be reminded by every public building, car lot, and bigot’s house of what country I live in.
Official federal and state buildings, those are fine.
But what if you are walking between aisles in walmart, and suddenly become unsure what country you are in?
The 400 woman on a mobility scooter blocking the isle will probably clue me in.
This bill is literally about the federal government purchasing flags, not private citizens…
Why did I think this was already a thing?
When talking about bizarre American obsession with flags… :
Millions of people dying on the street.
The government: lets play with flags!
Since the dawn of time, wars have been waged. The US isnt the worlds police even as much as we pretend. We cant stop war.
Homeless people, disabled people, drug additcs, massive gun crime, crazy motor accidents because no public transit.
Hundreds of thousands of people are dying on AMERICAN streets
edited from millions -> hundreds of thousands
MILLIONS! lol
Every year in the US:
- 50k die from gun violence
- 40k die from road deaths
- 120k die from overdose
- 1k die trying to cross border
- 25k die of starvation
- 2k die of homelessness complications
- 70k die of lack of healthcare access for treatable disease
Okay, it you add that up, its hundreds of thousands, not millions, I estimated too high.
But its nothing to laugh about.
Interesting you put the deadliest one 3rd. But that one involves policing the border, and you dont want that, do you?
We could also treat drug addiction as a medical problem and not a crime, and prohibit drug testing in exchange for social services.
That works real well for California, doesn’t it?
We have the highest preventable death rate in the developed world. That’s diseases and deaths that were preventable with correct medical treatment or diet.
And we’re talking about fucking flags.
