Flags and Their Meaning

From “A Word a Day”

Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead. -Arundhati Roy, writer and activist (b. 24 Nov 1961)

In America, we have a long-running debate about patriotism, in that both the right and the left claim to love their country.  Conservatives say they embrace this country just as it is, or rather as it was before the left turned it into socialism.  Progressives claim to care enough about our nation and its people to seek to improve it and make it a more just and equitable place to live.