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submitted 1 month ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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.

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[-] synae@lemmy.sdf.org 77 points 1 month ago

So, who's the donor friend who owns flag manufacturing facilities?

[-] DaMonsterKnees@lemmy.world 68 points 1 month ago

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!

[-] PseudorandomNoise@lemmy.world 37 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] verdantbanana@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

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

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago

I hope you never have kids if you're going to tell them they have nothing to look forward to.

[-] tate@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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.

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

Literally none of that was achieved via incremental politics.

  • women can vote
  • people of all races can vote
  • people of all races can own property

All arrived at via constitutional amendments after mass protests opposed by moderates at the time.

  • there is no (official) slavery

Penal slavery is still rampant and officially allowed. And a fucking CIVIL WAR to get rid of chattel slavery is about as far from peaceful incrementalism as you can get.

    • gay people can marry (for now)
  • your boss isn't allowed to fire you because you are gay

Supreme court decisions after the incrementalist moderates had gotten nowhere for decades, even passing things like DADT and DOMA.

  • we got the 40 hour work week and weekends
  • child labor is (mostly) outlawed

Thanks to mass protests and other actions by the labor movement opposed by moderates at the time.

  • women can go to college

Again due to mass protests and opposed by moderates at the time

  • prohibitions like on alcohol and marijuana are slowly fading away

No thanks to moderates, who have been dragging their feet until they could no longer get away with it

  • the grocery store has avocados all year long

Due to sellers of fruit wanting to make money selling fruit.

But yeah, nothing ever changes incrementally

Nothing significant, at any rate.

All those activists who worked their whole lives to peacefully bring these things about, well, that was a waste.

Many of these weren't brought about peacefully and, as I've already explained, none of them incrementally.

[-] tate@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 1 month ago

Every one of those things was incremental. Of course women never had a partial right to vote which grew stronger all the time. They suddenly had all of that right at once. But the process that got us there was incremental change in people's perceptions and attitudes. And that whole issue was one increment in the broader picture of all rights and protections for all people.

I'm very grateful to be alive today (and in the US) rather than 150 years ago. I owe most of that thanks to folks who worked peacefully, often in the face of terrible violence, to persuade good people to rethink their bad policies.

We have much further to go, of course.

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[-] verdantbanana@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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

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[-] Organichedgehog@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

"nothing short of a revolutionary war is progress"

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[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

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.

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[-] eran_morad@lemmy.world 43 points 1 month ago

they believe it will support American jobs and manufacturers

What, like 3 jobs?

[-] Kit 25 points 1 month ago

Yeah but they're going to spend $10,000 per flag that costs $0.10 to make. Gotta keep lining those contractor pockets!

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[-] Psychonaut1969@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

They will probably be made by slaves, I mean prisoners.

[-] snooggums@midwest.social 37 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] Rekhyt@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

This bill is literally about the federal government purchasing flags, not private citizens...

[-] FaceDeer@fedia.io 8 points 1 month ago

I remember the vacation road trips of my youth, when our family would drive from Canada down into the US to go camping. We'd make a game of counting the American flags we saw. Occasionally there'd be some "game over" property with more flags festooning it than we could actually count before we drove past. It'd be a boring game to count Canadian flags in a similar way. There'd be one or two per day of travel.

[-] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 33 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee 11 points 1 month ago

Sounds very american to me.

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[-] bitwaba@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

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!

[-] nkat2112@sh.itjust.works 30 points 1 month ago

If memory serves, I believe GOP Senator Susan Collins was the one who exercised great skill in brow furrowing - and nothing further - when expressing disapproval over felon Drink Bleach's reckless behavior.

[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Yeah I like the idea here, but I saw Susan Collins and thought “Aw fuck what bullshit from yonder asshole breaks?”

[-] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 29 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

You think those numbers are bad? Wait till you look up the averages for each US Senator.

[-] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

But do you think American flags should be made in America?!?

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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.

[-] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Maybe they should just elect one of those next time?

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[-] njm1314@lemmy.world 26 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It's like they know that one of our major problems is that capitalists have destroyed all our manufacturing and sent all of our production jobs overseas thus weakening our economy our society and our National Defense. Yet instead of doing anything about it they just do this thumb their nose bill that does nothing. Kind of like a fuck you to the entire country.

[-] Entertainmeonly 9 points 1 month ago

I'd really like to see who drafted this bill and a who the share holders in the company that will be making these flags are. My gut says they are the same people.

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[-] AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 month ago

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

[-] mortemtyrannis@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

There’s a Pretty Good Chance Your American Flag Was Made by a Prisoner: People of color are incarcerated in huge numbers. And they’re manufacturing America’s symbol of freedom.

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!

[-] derf82@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

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.

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[-] DLSantini@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 month ago

Well thank fuck they've started addressing such important issues.

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[-] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 month ago

On its surface that's not a horrible position for a government to take.

It's not unreasonable for the national government (in any country) to give some level of local preference to all procurement, not only something symbolic like flags. That would actually incentivize companies to onshore more of their manufacturing - or at least slow down their offshoring.

[-] Krauerking@lemy.lol 7 points 1 month ago

Yeah honestly national symbol items being made locally just makes sense for so many reasons if possible and this is definitely possible. Especially since it should be the purpose of the national government to support internal functions and business before external whenever possible right?

With of course like allowments for maybe raw materials or specialized things if it's not possible. I would get this feeling silly for a country like Vanuatu but the US has resources aplenty.

Plus in times of broken down supply lines it provides at least one manufacturing plant to rely on. This is also true of the military already for those reasons.

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

Fine. Then China will produce 99.98% of the flag and an American factory will put 2 stitches and a "Made in America" tag on it.

[-] Crikeste@lemm.ee 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

So you didn’t read the article and are just making shit up in your head? Got it.

Even with current rules, 50% of the flag has to be American made.

Typical.

[-] Krauerking@lemy.lol 4 points 1 month ago

A lot of people in here want to be angry and feel right rather than be informed.

[-] mecfs@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

Millions of people dying on the street.

The government: lets play with flags!

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[-] littlewonder@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

Why did I think this was already a thing?

[-] FelixCress@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

When talking about bizarre American obsession with flags... :

https://lemmy.world/post/17511734

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[-] criitz@reddthat.com 8 points 1 month ago

What a waste of our time

[-] Krauerking@lemy.lol 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

God I fucking hate fellow leftists. This is good and it wasn't your help that did it and it makes it easier to shit on.

We want manufacturing moved back into the country. A simple bill to move a point of national pride back to local manufacturing l, that while not a sweeping fix is a nice gesture to help make sure local companies can offer their services and employ Americans.

Ewww... Bullshit person with a cotton mill is gonna make money.

Booo! Why would anyone care about local manufacturing we need more local manufacturing

I just like to dog pile on things to complain about it to get my dopamine.

Seriously, be fucking happy for 30 seconds maybe? Then work on taking the next step forward? Instead of complaining how we took a nap for the last 4 decades we just get back in the race?

I hope local manufacturers use the income to be able to start more clothing production with quality cotton and we see an end to maybe fast fashion with moves like this. That'd be nice.

[-] Snapz@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

"Oh... okay. But did you want to do anything about that giant list of actual REAL problems over there behind you on the table?"

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this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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