Put Yourself to Bedlam

"Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder." ~ The Great Dictator

In response to Walmart's smiley face copyright battle, Make Magazine posted this YouTube video featuring Mr. Smiley himself in his first serious role, reading from The Great Dictator - Charlie Chaplin's satire about Nazi Germany where he plays a poor Jewish barber that is a doppleganger to the dictator "Adenoid Henkyl."

I haven't seen the film yet, but with character names like Garbitsch and Mr. Agar, you can bet I'm gonna go right out and rent it. There's even a dictator of Bacteria, named Benzini Napolini; delightfully unsubtle, I'd say.

All Hail Herr Smiley!
XXKHT

The flag that was the symbol of slavery on the high seas for a long time was not the Confederate battle flag, it was sadly the Stars and Stripes. --Alan Keyes

A few months ago, an activist friend of mine was very excited to share that the US flag as we know it, has not only had many incarnations throughout history, but more importantly, the orientation of the lines is significantly symbolic.

The Stars and Stripes that we Americans have been taught to believe is the sole representation of our patriotic troth has a peace time alter-ego: The Civil or Civilian Flag.

 

"Through usage and custom, horizontal stripes had become adopted for use over military posts, and vertical stripes adopted for use over civilian establishments. The Civil Flag, intended for peacetime usage in custom house civilian settings, had vertical stripes with blue stars on a white field. By the Law of the Flag, this design denoted civil jurisdiction under the Constitution and common law as opposed to military jurisdiction under admiralty/military law."

Furthermore, Old Glory, as we've come to know it, is specifically a battle flag - meant to indicate a military presence in war time.

We've engaged in warfare all of this century, the better part of last  and much of the century before that; but was that supposed to be the idea? Did we forget about the flag because we gave up on peace?

It further begs the question, was this collective forgetfulness deliberate?

Curiously,
KHT

Here's a picture of warmongering kitty cat - No kitty! That's a bad kitty!