Still - No Kings

 What a clever bunch of patriots. 

That was the phrase that kept running through my head as I stood on a corner in West Oakland, holding my very clever sign amid the throng of others with equally clever signs. How could anyone doubt the sincerity of this well-behaved protest? This time I even brought along my American flag. The same flag that once flew above the United States Capitol, the same flag that has graced my front porch for all the decades that I have had one on those occasions that required it. 

This was the first time that flag had gone on the road since it came to live with me all those years ago. The one that I have flown from the bracket I mounted at the top of my front steps. On September 11 and all the anniversaries of that dark hour. On Veterans Day. On Memorial Day. On Labor Day. Fourth of July. And sometimes just because the occasion seems to suggest a patriotic flourish. 

No Kings Day seemed like a good time to haul out Old Glory. It's not the property of a group of tiny-brained maniacs who have appropriated certain symbols for their own nefarious purpose. I made four very clever signs, but none more impressive and impactful than the Stars and Stripes. 

Neither my wife nor I followed through on our impulse to buy an inflatable frog suit to stand in solidarity with the Portland amphibians who have made their protest into performance art. That would have required us to push more money through the oligarch machinery of Amazon. If we were really as clever as we had imagined ourselves to be I suppose we might have found our own bolts of green polyester and a compact fan, creating our very own version of grown up tadpoles who have lost their faith in the current regime. 

Again: Very clever, but maybe not as clever as we had thought ourselves to be. 

I joined hundreds of my fellow Oaklanders, Californians, Americans to show that contrary to Mike "Shutdown" Johnson, we don't hate America. We love the United States. We do not love what it is becoming. We walked over to our street corner with a United States Marine veteran, whose sign may have been as on point as I could have imagined: "I fought fascism in other countries. I will fight it here." 

Clever. And correct. 

From the United States Constitution: Article I, Section 9, Clause 8: No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. 

Maybe not as pithy as my cartoon about Frogs Together Strong, but it'll do.