Look, I don’t usually get all worked up about flag burning, but this is fucking idiotic. I understand this is just a handful of people, so I do not wish to condemn and of the following groups: 1) Liverpool fans in general; 2) Football fans in general; 3) Britons in general.
So this is really a minor rant, but one of “your” companies is vomiting filth into the Gulf of Mexico and onto our shores and YOU are upset about the fact that some American owners have messed up your precious. So you condemn America by burning an American Flag
Fuck those “fans”. I may be wrong but no one over here is buring the Union Jack because we know a company is not representative of a country.
Wouldn’t life be easier if we all stopped training ourselves and our kids that a flag is some kind of sacred object? I never understood why burning the US flag is more offensive than, for example, burning a map of the United States or a banner with the words “United States Of America” written on it. Or perhaps those acts would be considered as offensive?
While I agree in general, the truth is they were making a statement with it and it was idiotic because it makes a statement about America in general when the protests should be at the owners only.
So you don’t usually get worked up by it, but you are getting worked up by a couple of Scousers doing it. Why? These people have no attachment to the Stars and Stripes. It isn’t a “sacred symbol” to them as your link so nauseatingly describes it.
More generally, Hicks is American. BP is a publically owned company, and as such really has no nationality. Even if it did, you’d be wrong to think that people weren’t ascribing blame to the amorphous British over this. I’ve had comments from a couple of drunk assholes over this. As to why they aren’t burning the Union Jack over this, well, presumably they don’t want to get on board a ship to do it. Maybe you meant the Union Flag.
But, if anyone feels it will in some way reduce the tragic flow of oil into the Gulf, please, set fire to the Union Flag. I won’t be offended in the slightest. As an aide, maybe if people stopped the whole ridiculous “sacred symbol” BS, people would stop burning it?
I was trying to think of something that I could care less about than someone burning an American flag. The only thing I could come up with is, “The political opinions of soccer thugs.”
Their actions were intended to be offensive; that was their whole point.
I agree that their shouldn’t be any special status for the flag. If they were burning a US map for the purpose of a generalized insult toward Americans, there’s no reason not to consider that insulting too.
But I think extremely few Americans actually feel bothered by flag burning by some small, private group of people, particularly overseas, just as I would not expect many in the UK to be genuinely bothered by some small BP-related anti-British protest somewhere in the US.
Also, I think it’s common among Americans to have a great deal of affection for the UK, for historical and cultural reasons, so it’s harder to generate real hostility.
So they’re protesting Americans’ desire to screw up the planet by releasing carbon into the atmosphere?
BTW, BP is drilling in deep water because that’s where the oil is. It’s equally easy to royally fuck up the environment by drilling in shallow water, like a massive Gulf of Mexico spill in 1979, which was in less than 200 feet of water. They didn’t cap that mess for 10 months.
A bunch of maroons blowing off steam in a somewhat safe way - Good for them. You may freely burn my country’s flag if you like as far as I’m concerned. You’re just playing into our plan to bring freedom of speech to the whole world.
I do object to the Mirror’s use of the term “redneck” in the same article where they whine about, well, everything. Otherwise the article is a top quality sissyrant.
Or perhaps it’s because they know no one will care; or because it generally wouldn’t occur to Americans that other people can be patriotic. We always seem surprised and offended when the people of other countries object to our invading them, much less smaller offenses.
Couldn’t they just burn Tom Hicks in effigy? That’s what we should do around Dallas, we’re he’s driven one of our sports franchises into the ground (the Rangers) and has another one on the way (the Stars).
I wholly agree. Burning the US flag is much too weak a response to the heinous depredation the hateful Americans have visited upon the venerable Liverpool football team. I should have expected at least a few McDonalds burnings and UN security council resolutions, if not an outright declaration of war by the Liverpool hooligans. Goddamn yanks. Don’t know about footballs. As all Liverpool fans are aware: footballs is much more important than life and death, and surely much more important than the silly gay looking circus striped thing you call a flag.
But what Rune said about “burning McDonalds” reminded me of something that was absurd enough to feel “funny” (at a certain level).
It happened in 1986, when there was that brouhaha about some U.S. planes bombing Libya, and all that. There was a demonstration in Barcelona, attended by the usual suspects (i.e. a lot of vaguely “ideological” young people with nothing better to do being led by a few firebrands). Slogans were shouted, some lamp-posts were smashed, and then they decided that they would go and try to “attack” the U.S. Consulate in Barcelona…
After some time, it dawned on them that they didn’t know where the U.S. Consulate actually was (and, if they had known, and they had tried to do something… HAH. Possibly this was better for them, I think). Anyway, they were on a roll, so they were going to attack something, damn!
They converged on a poor McDonald’s outlet nearby, screaming the following slogan: “¡HAMBURGUESA NO, BUTIFARRA SI!” (“Down with hamburgers, up with butifarra!” --butifarra is a kind of sausage that is very typical of Catalonia, it is similar to Polish kielbasa). While shouting that stirring battle-cry, they trashed the place to smithereens.
Two days later, to compound the surrealism of the situation, the Spanish directive of McDonalds made a public declaration saying that “McDonald’s has always respected and admired the local gastronomy of every place where they have put an outlet”.
I never understood the passionate defense of the flag itself. Whatever it’s a symbol of, fine, but it’s just cloth. Americans make fun of Muslims for getting enraged over desecration of the Quran, but freak out the bejesus over a flag. People can’t separate map from territory.
I don’t think it’s the freaking out of the desecration we make fun of. It’s the killing people over it. Still, it’s a good analogy.
I doubt they’d be much happier with any other American owners. Do you not remember the protests by Manchester United fans when the Glazers bought the team?
Football teams are not like American sports franchises. They are tied to their locations. The idea of packing up and moving to another city, as teams occasionally do here, is ludicrous to them. Hence the angst over Johnny Foreigner taking over their team.
