[Leica] More flags as requested from the same series

[Don Dory]

Jayanand, you come from a culture of immense diversity and age.  For
thousands of years most people lived side by side with people of very
different social standing, religions, and customs including invaders from
all directions.  Excluding the people dragged across the Atlantic to work
the cotton and indigo fields the vast majority of Americans chose to leave
their culture and the safety of a known situation to try something
different.  At first it was largely a pretty homogenous northern European
group that gradually included other groups that were somewhat different:
but the important point is that there was an overriding cultural imperative
to become "Americans" which most acculturated to.

Starting with the "Kennedy" immigration bill in the sixties? the largely
homogenous social norm began to change as people from very different
cultures were encouraged to immigrate.  Much like the crisis in the 1920's
when millions of immigrants were pushing the labor prices down and
our immigration laws changed, this new immigration wave began to have an
effect on the population; the fringes of society began reacting in the
seventies/eighties and that discomfort has been increasing.

I believe that starting with the events of 9\11 the population generally
started to promulgate patriotism as a way to mentally deal with the world
wide discomfort with American hegemony and the internal discomfort that
meeting all the new residents of very different customs created.  You have
to realize that most Americans lived with vast spaces between themselves.
A few of the coastal cities were somewhat dense in the rest of the world
sense but once you left the coast most lived with at most a few thousand
nearby people; nearby meaning their political unit typically a county.

What is interesting to me is the level of patriotism I observed on a long
road trip through the eastern part of the US.  Citizens of very different
political views were very interested in the American project.  While
methods of implementation varied greatly the general view was that the idea
of America was great and that it needed to be maintained\restored by almost
any means necessary.  I was surprised  by the caution expressed by some
very conservative people with the use of violence; the media portrays this
group as promoting violence yet the woman on the street was very interested
in political resolution and not Von Clausewitz  resolution.  Some of these
people were ex-military and very aware of what lays down that path.

As a parting thought, in my more than seven decades I have observed that in
the 60's through the early 2000's the patriotism I have observed was
reserved for July 4th and possibly Memorial Day.  Otherwise that aspect of
custom was not an issue.

A very long winded post to try to explain the very complicated devotion to
the flag and American culture.  Also a way to start a reasonable discussion
on the LUG like we used to have.

All the best.

Don

On Sun, Jul 12, 2026 at 9:59 PM Jayanand Govindaraj via LUG <
lug at leica-users.org> wrote:

> I find the American fixation with their flag hard to fathom. For a person
> like me, albeit from far away and of a completely different culture, it
> feels like a form of unhealthy nationalism, leading to jingoism and
> starting wars on flimsy grounds—a tendency immensely helped by geography.
>
> Cheers
> Jayanand
>
> On Sun, Jul 12, 2026 at 8:39 PM Don Dory via LUG <lug at leica-users.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Greetings to all.  One of our members asked for a few more flags in the
> > series I shot in the neighborhood.  Here are two more variations; the
> wind
> > was blowing so I didn't have very many variations:
> >
> >
> >
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/don_dory_gmail_com/Monday+Misc/flag+with+Live+Oak+street+in+background.jpg.html
> >
> >
> >
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/don_dory_gmail_com/Monday+Misc/centered+flag.jpg.html
> >
> > All the best.
> >
> > --
> > Don
> > don.dory at gmail.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Leica Users Group.
> > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information



-- 
Don
don.dory at gmail.com