A tale of three flags

By Tony Farkas
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In flitting around those short videos that are on just about every social media platform, I ran across one that put me in mind of one of those pearl-clutching moments of the past, when everyone was up in arms about the Confederate flag.

The debate was about the heritage of the south vs. the symbolism of the flag, which was described as hate, since it was the flag of the part of the country that practiced slavery and oppression of people of color.

The outcry ended with most states abolishing the use of the flag in matters of government, statues related to the flag were toppled or removed, and if piece of cloth dares to rear its ugly head there will be battalions of people ready to protest.

When you look around those same videos, and in news feeds, and social media timelines nowadays, you’ll see thousands of people protesting to end the “genocide” being enacted on the Palestinian people and waving the flag of Palestine.

These misinformed, pearl-clutching shrieking harridans are protesting, screaming, and even assaulting people in order to OMG stop the genocide because Israel is bad, and the Palestinian people are just trying to live their lives in peace and harmony and puppies and look what is happening.

The problem with that, and that flag, is that it represents a community that never existed and a group of people that believe that the state of Israel shouldn’t exist. The phrase “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” means that the entire region will be Palestine.

That means the eradication of Israel.

How is it, then, that the same people that were adamant that a flag that represents segregation, discrimination, racism, subjugation and even evil would rally behind a flag that represents essentially the same thing?

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While the aptly named behavior of virtue signaling may make folks feel warm and fuzzy, two things occur to me here. One, is that talking and yelling and hollering and singing and basically acting the fool doesn’t mean that anything is accomplished, and two, if all the foofaraw over oppression isn’t applied equally, then is any virtue actually signalled?

Bear in mind while considering the question that Palestinian people, either through Hamas or with knowledge that Hamas had set up camp in Palestine, complete with tunnels and funding and Easy Bake halal ovens, started this shooting match.

There is the question of the third flag to consider as well.

Granted, the exercise of that uniquely American right of free speech is wonderful, and solidarity with a country of heritage is certainly an admirable trait, without passion for this country, those efforts come off as hypocritical.

I’m saying that many of the problems in this country would not be as severe or even exist if the people here cared as much about this flag and the meaning behind it as they do about flags of other countries.

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Towny Farkas is publisher of the San Jacinto News-Times and the Trinity County News-Standard. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The views expressed here avre his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of this publication.