Mailwatch(ed) Forum

RedSparrows wrote: ↑Tue Aug 19, 2025 11:35 am

It's the last refuge of a scoundrel BECAUSE it's so powerful, and gives a get out of jail free card to the cynic. To dismiss it is like dismissing religion. We can't. The morally awkward things don't vanish because we've 'explained' them. It doesn't work. The 'left' or the 'liberals' need to be far better at handling it than they are, and this is not to take anything away from the wilful ignorance and cynicism of the cunts we face. It's all the more important because of them.

Fundamentally, there's something underneath. The expectation of defeat, the expectation of 'oppression', the expectation of some mytho-heroic conflict with 'Them'. People want to articulate a sense of being downtrodden. It gives symbolic, powerful structure to actual economic and social decline, and gives romance where there is only grimness. The flag is the easiest route to it, and it's playing a game entirely on the right's front lawn.

The issue there is, of course, that it's so embedded with the right that playing the game at all is easily readable as playing the same old Reform playground bundle: why ape them when people can just vote for them instead? For all the fear and wailing about cultural marxism et al, the right have been infinitely cleverer with their cultural work in this space.

The problem then becomes how you wrest the notion of patriotism and pride in your country away from the bastards that are using it politically to mobilise the simpletons that don' t understand it but happily buy into the "flag-shagging" and worse.

In this respect, Starmer has perhaps made some progress in reclaiming the notion by promoting a version of progressive national pride - with union flags draped over every podium or conference platform he speaks from, for which of course, he gets unending flak from the Trots.

Arguably the cross of St George, in particular, is so embedded in the bosom of right-wing dopery that it is beyond redemption or reclamation, but what are you gonna do ?

Fly a flag for those who've done something extraordinary for the country like the England's women team winning the European cup. But flying a flag to show your neighbours something you're supposed to do (support your country) do you want a medal for that?
The motivation is to isolate then garner suspicion and hatred towards those who aren't flying a flag. They're part of 'the other.'

Youngian wrote: ↑Tue Aug 19, 2025 1:18 pm The motivation is to isolate then garner suspicion and hatred towards those who aren't flying a flag. They're part of 'the other.'

Absolutely so. Utterly transparently so. And it’s considerably worse than just mischief. The motivation is to foment racial hatred and xenophobia - precisely the same motivation behind Farage “just asking questions” about the immigration status and ethnic origin of the killer that provoked the rioting in the wake of the Southport atrocities last July - which of course was precisely what Farage intended the consequence to be. The simpletons who shrug their shoulders and say (sometimes disingenuously) “what’s wrong with a bit of national pride ?” are a big part of the problem.

It’s despicable.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 19, 2025 2:18 pm

Youngian wrote: ↑Tue Aug 19, 2025 1:18 pm The motivation is to isolate then garner suspicion and hatred towards those who aren't flying a flag. They're part of 'the other.'

Absolutely so. Utterly transparently so. And it’s considerably worse than just mischief. The motivation is to foment racial hatred and xenophobia - precisely the same motivation behind Farage “just asking questions” about the immigration status and racial origin of the killer that provoked the rioting in the wake of the Southport atrocities last July - which of course was precisely what Farage intended the consequence to be. The simpletons who shrug their shoulders and say (sometimes disingenuously) “what’s wrong with a bit of national pride ?” are a big part of the problem.

It’s despicable.

Agreed. But in a sense this makes Starmer 'flag everywhere' stuff kinda OK by me, and conversely makes Faragist-apeing, where it happens, all the more dangerous.

The flag being everywhere neuters, to some extent, this cynical selectivity and cynical 'we're so repressed' backstab bollocks. If the cost is some Trots being annoyed at someone else being irrationally attached to an abstracted and fundamentally-only-so-helpful understanding of the world, then they should explode in a puff of irony, if they could sense it.

I'd rather the flag was entirely uncontroversial and rather pedestrian, but I'm not sure how to get there with so much poison being injected into it by the right, and denial of it only strengthens that poison for the everyday citizen who, half the time, I wouldn't trust with a penknife and the other half of the time I'm not convinced wouldn't lose it and forget it ever existed - but thems the cards we've been dealt, short of a massive renovation of the national psyche.

There was a short time a while back when showing the flag didn't necessarily make you a flag shagger. One such flag was on display in son's bedroom window. A large cross of St. George with a memorable slogan writ large across it: "In Sven we Trust".

Doesn't mind selling "that foreign muck" though, I notice. He won't be laughing if it turns into a riot and his cafe gets smashed up in the marauding by his fellow racists.

Does he ask what illegal immigrants are doing here and when that obvious question is answered, who is employing them off the books? He'll probably say Turkish barbers but not local white petit-bourgeoisie and trades people like himself, oh no.

Christ, it's spreading to Scotland now.

Half mast. Is that significant?

Killer Whale wrote: ↑Wed Aug 20, 2025 12:08 pm Half mast. Is that significant?

Probably not. I ‘d guess it’s just that the wankers don’t have the nerve to climb any higher.

Youngian wrote: ↑Wed Aug 20, 2025 10:19 am Does he ask what illegal immigrants are doing here and when that obvious question is answered, who is employing them off the books? He'll probably say Turkish barbers but not local white petit-bourgeoisie and trades people like himself, oh no.

In rural Wales it will almost exclusively be chefs and waiters at the local curry restaurant. There will be a series of raids every couple of years or so. I can't remember any other cases. No Afgans, no Kurds, no one from anywhere in Africa. Just Bengalis, basically.

Killer Whale wrote: ↑Wed Aug 20, 2025 12:08 pm Half mast. Is that significant?

It's a tribute to Tommeh - innit!

The big problem with patriotism in England is that, like many things, it invariably comes with a side order of aggressive superiority. With the exception of the USA I can't think of any other country where national pride is about being better rather than being different and where flying a flag also means daring anyone to say anything about it.

Yes. Add to that the now practically inseparable association with, in particular, the flag of St George, far-right racism/xenophobia, and you’ve got a hideous, and all but intractable, problem.

The flag-shaggers are as likely to scoff at inclusive or benign expressions of English culture (Morris dancers, maypoles etc) as they are for any other nationality. For them, aggressive superiority is all there is.

It is weird, though, that the St George's flag was largely reclaimed from the far right around the time of Euro 96 when I was living in Sarff Lunnun. My black friends in particular were fond of it since it didn't have the empire overtones of the Union Jack. I really don't know where all that went, but it appears to slowly have regressed into being once more a far right symbol.

It's easier to draw than a union flag. Or a swastika, for that matter.

Maybe we'll be spared over here because of the complexity of both the Draig Goch and the Glyndŵr arms. Try painting one of those bastards in a box junction in Swansea while the traffic's still moving.

The main reason I avoid painting Welsh miniature figures...

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Wed Aug 20, 2025 4:45 pm The main reason I avoid painting Welsh miniature figures...

I taught myself enough MS Paint to knock up flags for my printer.
* Create the flag.
* Copy, reverse it and paste it next to the original.
* Experiment a bit so there's enough gappage to wrap around your selected flagpole, and still look right.
* Paint in the gappage with something appropriate.
* Print, cut out and wrap around your miniature's flagstaff.
* Secure it with Pritt (Wetter glues will cause your super expensive printer ink to run.
* Bend to taste into a wavy pattern before the Pritt cures.
* Use paint or a sharpie to colour in the edges (unless your flags had a white binding).

If you're making forces from before the age of uniforms (Medieval and early Renaissance).
And if you've got a smooth flagpole (e.g. Florist's wire).
Then you can create "Flags of convenience" for many different factions.

Because a Gen'd'arme in Burgundian pay looks much like a mercenary in Milanese pay, except for the flags.
Applies also to pikemen, crossbows, arquebusiers and all the other camp followers.