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flag burning

Discussion in 'Anarchism and radical activism' started by Red-Fury, Feb 23, 2012.

  1. Red-Fury

    Red-Fury New Member New Member


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    Feb 8, 2012
     
    Just wondering everyone's stance on it. I personally do it all the time and think everyone should. I regularly burn American,confederate and various military flags. I also graffiti them. I know people who have left them outside recruitment centers and in ROTC halls at school. It's an anti-nationalist thing for me or an anti-military thing. Anybody on the same page as me?
     

  2. vAsSiLy77

    vAsSiLy77 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    Jun 21, 2010
     
    proud to say that i had to pay twice this february for lowering the federal flag and burning the aquired "black-red-and gold" just to clean up the area a bit - the judge called me an bad example for the youth (one of the flags hung on a school ground) but switched to "perpetrator from conviction" after i gave a pre-prepared 20-minutes history presentation about german nationalism, quite an success for the cheering audience... at least the little efford spared me an arrest...
    at the same blockade i saw a punk using another flag as a loin cloth after ripping his breeches climbing over a fence - it looked somehow quite sexy... hope the guy got away with it. :ecouteurs:
     
  3. grinding hault

    grinding hault Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Jan 4, 2012
     
    every time i find one of those little flags stickin out of the ground I burn it. Ya know, the ones that are made in china. some times the flames are deep red almost like blood and the fabric melts and drips. It's pretty rad.

    Flag burnin's great in my book.
     
  4. Nechesh666

    Nechesh666 Member New Member


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    Feb 18, 2012
     
    Of course, as a standing symbol of nationalism and oppression why wouldn't you burn the flag? The damn things are made by the millions for cents on the dollar by starving children in foreign lands; the fuck should they care that their oh so majestic symbol of pride and honor be consumed in flames.
     
  5. Canis latrans

    Canis latrans Active Member Forum Member


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    Feb 26, 2012
     
    I don't understand how flag burning makes a point. Unless its primary intention is just piss people off?
     
  6. vAsSiLy77

    vAsSiLy77 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    Jun 21, 2010
     
    nah, to clear the area from undecent and stylless stuff fetished by uniforms and rogues.
     
  7. Canis latrans

    Canis latrans Active Member Forum Member


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    Feb 26, 2012
     
    Would you go around burning religious iconography?
     
  8. nike

    nike Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Jun 19, 2011
     
    that depends:
    muslims are pretty arabesque and soberly, their muezzins kinda nice, not much to burn there.
    i lack experience with them jewish, so i think they managed to get along without interfering my path of flight guess they burned enough in the past and palestine is a tribal war, not an religious.
    but i had serious troubles with christians and buddhists for nothing but my course and they scare the little kids too with naked pain and bamboo sticks -
    some of their stuff is arts or culture, even if shitty and indecent - so off into the corners of galleries and museums, maybe someone is interested and want to learn something about being loud and superflous.
     
  9. Derek Danger

    Derek Danger Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Jan 29, 2010
     
    I don't think so, but I think that Inna Ruts may be oversimplifying the philosophy of flag burning. I'll see what I can do by going into this in a bit more depth.

    Let's examine the flag; a symbol of nation, to fly, display or possess one is to say that you believe in the nation-state and the nationalist way of being (whether or not you agree, you're still supporting this system implicitly). To live in a world of Anarchism and of Borderless communities, one must reject nation, nationality and nationalism at every turn.

    As it is now, some of the activism an Anarchist engages in must be symbolic, as the Revolution or Revolutions are a long way off. Flying an (let's say) Australian flag is symbolic support of nationalism. To burn that flag is a symbolic rejection of that nationalism.

    To burn a flag is not just the opposite of flying it, it is the opposite of it existing. You turn the flag to ash and it is reduced to less than the sum of the parts that made it. It stops being a flag and becomes a nothing. It ceases to be a symbol for nationalists and becomes, in an entirely philosophical way (and what are we if not philosophical?), a symbol for Anarchists.

    Edit: Change of names, I got confused about the OP
     
  10. vAsSiLy77

    vAsSiLy77 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member Forum Member


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    Jun 21, 2010
     
    erm, yes - it was short, but my main point was that i burn almost nothing just to annoy somebody, i think that would be kinda lousy and cheap.
    i admit, we tried hard to capture one of this nazi-reichskriegsflaggen-rags, to burn it right before some of the boneheads eyes and throw the leftover dirt right before their feet... it might have annoyed them - but for me it's like showing them what they are, nothing but/and dirt.
    we failed getting one to make this point - but the federal flags went into flame just for me.
    wanna lecture about german history in the years from 1840 - to today and call me eurocentrist afterwards? - i'll keep it short:
    todays federal flag "black red and gold" is the same mainly bourgois nationalists waved 1848, demanding that the numerous small "german" part states were united into one great nation, besides that they wanted to reduce the power and influence of the petty kings and whatever nobles - a weak shadow of the french revolution 1789...
    what they achieved until 1870 was the imperium of the german nation, led by prussias king willie the first - and even before it was declared in Versailles, it's troops attackt France under napoleon III. beating the french and afterwards terminating the Communes in Paris, Lyon and smaller cities and towns i don't remember. the imperium grew afterwards in military power, kinda arms race started and tensions grew in europe between the monarchies struggling for superiority and colonies until 1914 - first world war... revolution in germany, workers council republics in berlin, hamburg and munich - beaten down blodily by proto-fascists and ex-militairs commanded by social democrats... republic of weimar, constant rise of rightwing extremists, especially the nazis led by adolf h... after WW2 the new democratic state came up, kinda frontstate because of the east-west conflict and cold war - and what was flying again - black red and gold...
    my family suffered not that much, but i heard the stories, the echos of 1933-1945 and after i learned what was it all about these stories and echos, i was scared, disgusted and i felt guilty for being assumed to be "german" - dunno when this fucking reflex to the federal flag came up - but each time i see it the eurocentric movie rolls through my brains, almost like one of these documentaries put in fast motion - class war with two upper factions fighting it out using the lower classes as their bloody pawns... exactly like in the textbooks and inflaming me with a rage - so it's like cleaning up the place, undo what happened, erase even the first signs that it might happen again in another way...+

    yours are right, friend-of-the-frog-mug derek d. - it's a philosophical consequence materializing in the realities, and for that i'll burn you an aussie-flag if i ever get one, but i guess i'm not that philosophical and anarchist (it starts to sound strange these days) - but i'm still scared and enraged and pissed by what they've done/do again under their shitty flag they pretend to be "my" flag too after they dragged it out of the ruins.
     
  11. grinding hault

    grinding hault Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Jan 4, 2012
     
    If someone gets pissed off then that's their problem. I burn a flag to destroy a symbol of everything I oppose. It's not so much a performance to attract attention, but more of a personal symbolic act. I do it for me, because it feels good.

    That's not the same thing at all. Although I once peed on a bible and rather enjoyed it \m/

    Nationalism isn't a religious faith and I hope to fuck it never becomes one. I don't necessarily advocate destroying religious iconography, but I'm most definitely not against it. It's just a physical object and things like religion should never be taken too seriously, as history has proven.
     
  12. Canis latrans

    Canis latrans Active Member Forum Member


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    Feb 26, 2012
     
    I guess you have not met the sorts of people I have. For some, if not many, their state is their god, and the symbols of their state are living creatures that embody the ideals ascribed to their stategod. To people like that, burning their flag is like burning a bible, or an animal.
     
  13. grinding hault

    grinding hault Experienced Member Experienced member


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    Jan 4, 2012
     
    Good point. I know there are plenty of people like that, unfortunately, but they don't matter to me so it's very rare that those types stumble into my reality... fortunately. Come to think of it there are a lot of people who would consider flag burning the equivalent of blasphemy, which is so stupid I can only laugh.
     
  14. nike

    nike Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Jun 19, 2011
     
    is it really the "state god" they fetish out of a piece of manycoloured textiles - or is it kinda self-reassuring to belong to a certain great culture, brave people, upright mind set?
    i think symbols usually express this "i am..." - only religion produces little pieces of the promised paradise right here on earth, so statues and artefacts (some really absurd) gain healing or blessing properties...
    if a nationalist defends his fetish he defends a piece of his self-image.
    watched a bit tv tonight with a documentary about burial traditions - lots of crosses and other christian iconomy, some of it quite strange - but i guess out of respect for the dead i wouldn't destroy it and because nobody asked the buried people for their wishes, it's justa installation of the still living.
     
  15. nike

    nike Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Jun 19, 2011
     
    stole a free-state bavarian flag today, it's white and blue, couldn't resist to find out how the stringing works and its large enough to use it as a blanket for the outdoors summer.
     
  16. Canis latrans

    Canis latrans Active Member Forum Member


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    Feb 26, 2012
     
    Oh I agree, but then again I am an Absurdist Discordian that served 4 years in the US Army, did two months of flag raising detail and 3 months on a funeral honors team. I find the very idea of blasphemy to be stupid, just like the idea that the American flag is a living creature.


    Have you ever attacked someone's religion? For those with devout beliefs in their religion, it is an attack on their-selves. Their religion is a core part of who they are. Anything that can be used to create a group around, that allows for distinct notion of US and NOT US, can inspire the a religious level of insanity. Like sport teams, or martial arts style, or car brand, or veganism.



    I should add that flag burning doesn't offend me. I just think it is also stupid, but then again I am not an anarchist.
     
  17. nike

    nike Experienced Member Experienced member Forum Member


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    Jun 19, 2011
     
    so what do you think about this military burial flag thing, first covering the coffin, like hiding it from view, then folded in this strange, almost ritual way by these moving-like-a-mechanical-puppet coffin guards - and finally given to the bereaved as a triangle package?
    wonder what they do with the folded thing after returning home from the cementary?
    agreed, but them religous still think there is the allseeing eye of the heavens watching them even on the toilet, unlike the other identity groups religious insanity it works on them even if one is a complete eremit/maverick.
    and with the christians there is an old and long tradition of erimitage and refusal of community and the worlds in general, especially the irish had hordes of eremits going into the woods or seeking out the strangest places in cliffs and at the sea sides.
     
  18. Red-Fury

    Red-Fury New Member New Member


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    Feb 8, 2012
     
    Religion isnt necessarily bad. Burning religious symbols is too lose people off, its usually done by fourteen year old metal fans who practice or pretend to practice satanism...and dont even get me started on that. The thing is christ made some good points, I don't agree with all of them but to me Christ is on the same level as bakunin who also made some good points some of which I disagree with.
     
  19. Canis latrans

    Canis latrans Active Member Forum Member


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    Feb 26, 2012
     
    It's a ceremony to comfort the family the deceased left behind. That stuff isn't for the dead, it is for the living. And there is nothing almost about how ritualistic the flag folding ceremony is. It IS a ritual. It has to be done precisely, crisply, without any wasted effort, and flawlessly. It is also very boring and tiring. As far as I know, the families will get a case for the folded flag and display it someplace prominent, but some will fly the flag at their homes. I don't know how things are in other nations but that I do know the flag symbolizes a LOT to Americans. You are essentially desecrating their loved ones graves by burning the US flag. They won't understand what you are trying to convey when you burn a flag; they will be reacting emotionally. Which goes back to me asking if you (general) would destroy religious iconography.
     
  20. Bentheanarchist

    Bentheanarchist Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member


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    Dec 10, 2010
     
    If god watches EVERYONE EVERYWHERE! He is a sicko pedophile peeping tom.
     
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