4th of July in Mendo shows WE are still WE the people, but stop messing with Old Glory, please!

Listen to the faces at Mendocino’s 4th of July parade. You can still see in the faces in the photos the exuberance at being beautiful and ugly Americans. Everywhere was the American flag, still the symbol of the American myth that conquered the world and steered  Europe and Japan toward Democracy.

The parade was big, but it would have been tiny without Mendocino Indivisible. Janice Littrell at the Chamber did a great job of getting local businesses and institutions that have been in our area 40-50 years into the parade. Corners of the Mouth had a truly awesome and funny group.

The entire volunteer Mendo Fire Department turned out. Several paramedics were on bikes all day, looking for problems while others did traffic control. A huge contingent of deputies provided security and helps.

Why not Cannabis dispensaries? Why not Fort Bragg city and the new MCN? Why not the JAG from Jackson Forest? We need more. contribution to the collective. The Mendo 4th of July parade is still overwhelming a local celebration of US, not for the visitors like the World’s Largest Salmon BBQ.

I talked to many conservative and liberal people, visitors and locals, all happy Americans. We were us again for that day.

Even in what I consider dark times, the story those faces are telling shows we can arise as “We the People”  once again. On the 4th of July, we went from a failed nation to  America the Great again! Finally, we turned off the lying cable news and together embraced equality, justice and our power to renew ourselves through collective action and the fresh blood of new immigrants who want to experience the dream of America.

We the People was impossible and mythological from the very beginning. No way Jose, John and Jahmelia the world told us!

France gave us a giant symbol of defiance and we put it in New York harbor with the following message. Our liberty and this message, made it great. 

Americans have forgotten what the message is that allowed us to become the greatest nation on earth and save the world twice from despots.

So here it is:

‘“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries Liberty

With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me

and we will make them great.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”^’

Those who claim to want to make America great “again” have forgotten and despise the actual message that describes exactly how America became great in the first place!

But there is hope in the red, white and blue that we all hold high on July 4. I implore the fire, police, left and right to stop scribbling on it, turning it black, holding it upside down and embrace it as the essential symbol of our collective myth.

Until the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776 and delivered to King George III, really every government was just some version of feudalism. In reality, the rich and the corrupt, the evil and the stupid will always win, will always rule.

We are not reality. America is a myth come to life, an idea, not a disciplined and obedient army.

The king and his nobles made fun of the bumbling farmers and untrained troops with a humiliating song called Yankee Doodle, which derives from a German phrase that means “idiot playing music badly“ Americans embraced the put-down and played it on their homemade flutes as they defeated the British Army.  150 years later, the Nazis and Italians cringed in fear when full American bands would play Yankee Doodle as a sign they were coming to the rescue of their betters.  America embraced the derogatory cartoon of the comically disheveled, long-haired and elderly troops armed with sticks and homemade muskets as their own. That is America, the great, not a bunch of creepy billionaires hating on those downtrodden!

Until we came along, humans served at the whims of their “betters,” We said “screw all that” When the Declaration was delivered, King George and his obedient press talked of how every effort where people tried to rule themselves had failed. They were right. Without checks and balances, every nation fell into the hands of corrupt cronies.  A king brought dignity and continuity.  Scholars and the archbishops knew what was best, not the commoners, who needed to be kept working long hours and denied the ability to buy land, not by fiat, but purely by inheritance.

They said to keep us in our place.

We said turn us loose and invite more ruffians, rednecks, commies, and poor immigrants and we will be the greatest. 

We were right. Now they have near absolute power and they have given up on the myth and the dream. We can win over they again. 

Perhaps the greatest book ever written about America was Democracy in America. The French aristocrat  Alexis de Tocqueville spent two years in America in the 1830s. He was horrified by the crudity of  the people in the towns, cities and halls of  Congress. Americans would sometimes fight to physical blows over trivial matters. But in the end they came together in the public square, voted and moved forward. He said America would surpass moribund Europe and soon rule the world because of our belief in our country and each other. He even let the American translated version of his book, come with his name as Alexander, because Americans “were too stupid to say his name in French and too smart to listen to a Frenchman anyway,” according to an old newspaper clipping I have. More than 10 million copies have been printed since 1835 in English alone. Alex took his inspiration from Voltaire, who went to the place France hated the most and wrote a book that gave good news about how the English were doing with Democracy, “Letters on the English” Voltaire was virtually incapable of being anything but cynical and snide and was one of the greatest thinkers in human history.

The wildness and the love for each other still shows up. There was a thrilling contingent from Mendocino Coast Safe Space, dancing under pride flags. There were old hippies under peace flags. Those were great. But there were also upside-down American flags, thin blue line flags and thin red line flags. Like the ridiculous message on the red hats whose wearers try to convince us that America was made great by whiteness and cruel wealthy hoarders, those who mess with the flag are missing that America the WE needs its symbols and myths.

I wish people would leave Old Glory alone. I loved the patriotism of the guy in the main photo with glasses and I love all celebrations of the flag. I don’t love altered American flags or the Stars and Stripes displayed rudely. We all love firefighters and law enforcement. Why must they scribble on the American flag and turn it black?. Why do protesters on the right and left love to fly the flag upside down?

This symbol of We should not be the symbol of any THEM!!!

Right-wing justice Samuel Alito (or was it his wife?) joined Maga everywhere in flying the flag upside down on his house to protest the “stolen” election of 2020 before liberals started doing it again. Please stop this also, both sides.

We must have our dream, our fantasy. Parades are an American invention. Processions have existed throughout human history, such as the Roman Army dragging naked slaves on chains along. That was a procession, not a parade. Russian tanks declaring the power of dictator Putin or Priests leading religious pilgrimages, those were processions. In America, nobody is in charge of a parade. Nobody is forced to goose step on the 4th of July. No float, no politician is better, each has their turn. Dignified American Legion Veterans bearing the colors and glorious big firetrucks proclaiming their life saving works and sacrifices were as welcome as the huge contingent of Mendocino Indivisible, which had more right-side-up than upside-down flags.

The flag is We the People for the touching. Throughout history, parades have been the chance to celebrate the American idea that all of us have a story to tell. 

Scholars dreamed of Republics and even Democracies throughout time. Plato said humans weren’t ready for Democracy in his day and launched the Academy in 387 B.C and taught that people must learn to embrace and share ideas, not memorize laws or blindly adhere to kings or gods. The Platonic Academy was destroyed by the Roman dictator Sulla in 86 BC, who hated the idea of education, but not before it had created schools and other universities and the idea that humans can have great power together from learning and adhering to universal truths.

During the Dark Ages, superstition prevailed over reason, but the American founding fathers, partly through the influence of the grandfather of America, Benjamin Franklin, all became enthralled students of the Ancient Greek idea that freedom, justice, and equality can be achieved collectively. They spelled it out in the Declaration of Independence, ridiculed thoroughly in its day and now by MAGA, especially.  Marxists, like MAGA, tell us our betters must rule us, just different betters than the rich ones MAGA worships. 

So far, all the King’s men and all the Soviet phony talk of “comrades” have lost to us. Fascist-feudalist MAGA could too.  But if we don’t remember that equality, justice and balance made us great, we will lose.

Education is the key. I’m trying to do my part, even though, or perhaps because, I look like the tall, goofy old guy playing the flute in Yankee Doodle. If you want polished, marketing-chosen news, the other side has it for you! 

Franklin pushed for secular public schools, an idea turned into reality by Horace Mann and John Dewey, where the idea that we can really all prevail together against the old orders of aristocracy as We the People. Kids for centuries learned before their minds closed to new ideas about many many big ideas, including the magic of being an American. McGuffey’s Reader taught kids the Betsy Ross story (partly apocryphal but wonderfully true as well)  but the truth of how the stripes represented the division of power so that the red power only existed in a white sea of equality. The 13 stars were mighty states, but they floated in a new constellation of justice, said the first Congress.

This was our America. This was and is fiction but also starkly real and without the dream, our real life is lost.. One of the big tragedies of my life was  the left-wing attacks on the founders because they were flawed men of the 18th century that were so popular back then. They toppled one hero after another. 

I had a Catholic school teacher who debated both for and against this. He also taught us “founding fathers: was incorrect. At least one founder of America, Abigail Adams, was a woman. Read the letters she wrote to her husband if you don’t believe it.. The 70s spirit of defiance of everything was great. But the myth of the flag and “We the People” were wrongly and terribly destroyed, while we learned important hard truths, like that Thomas Jefferson hated slavery but did not have the courage to free his slaves, for fear of financial ruin and his twisted relationship with his black slave wife and their children.

We the People and the flag must be sacrosanct.

That we are beautiful individuals made great because we bring the might of our lodges, churches, councils and circuses out to each celebrate themselves to the collective, uniquely American joy of all of us

The firefighters, law enforcement and upside down flags all made me cringe.

Our police are great to the extent they remember they are just regular We the People, not above those they must arrest to protect the rest of us. 

When people come to America from many other nations, they are amazed the police here can be trusted. And they really can folks, but just remember there is good and bad in everything. The rich are not better than us ,as the GOP tells us. 

I might be the only guy to question the red-striped edited American flag of firefighters. Many find the thin blue line flag scary, and many places have banned it.  I oppose all government bans of flags and the changing of names. Those that do so are putting themselves up on a pedestal and missed the point.. 

What about turning the flag upside down?

The upside-down flag is a symbol of distress, used at sea to signal to a fellow  American ship not to approach, before the days of radio. Vietnam supporters used it to indicate their feeling the nation was in distress. Supporters of Donald Trump used it to say the nation had failed after Trump was convicted on 33 felony counts. The most right-wing man in America, It was a right wing symbol Now liberals are using the upside-down flag to show the nation is in distress because of Trump.

I wish it would stop. All ya’ll need to realize the American flag is all of us, and it should not be altered for private agendas.

No weird version of the American flag should be flown by public agencies or in public buildings. No upside down. No blue line flag.  No statues of the Confederacy or Imperial Japan or any other enemies of the USA in or on a PUBLIC building. Old images and statues are part of history and ideal for museums. They should not be crushed or destroyed. To do so is an arrogance of modernism. We are not better or smarter and we are in fact worse, if we don’t know our history and learn from it.

The American flag is the enduring and sacrosanct symbol of us, of all of us, of We the People. Others come and go. It must always have the top position as flag etiquette demands. Flag etiquette violations won’t get you arrested, but if you refuse to follow it, who are you?  What are we? The SF courthouse still had a Confederate flag there when Diane Feinstein was mayor, very weird as California never had anything to do with the Confederacy. All other flags are subject to change with the will of the people.

Fire departments have always been the heart of the parade.

The thing that disturbed me about the firetrucks red line flag at the parade is it was at the same height as the actual American flag and on a vehicle owned by the taxpayers. Nobody today seems to know that the display of other flags at the height of American flag disturbs cranky old guy.  I wanted to go talk to them, as I know them to all be great people.

Unfortunately, I had lost my cell phone and was in a hurry and panic over that. 

We must hold the flag highest, because its the symbol of our rare but flawed belief in equality. It’s deeply rooted in me by my dad, who fought in the Pacific 1942-1946 and would stand at the ballgame and sing the national anthem in a day when that was not cool. You could never tell on a given day if Dad was going to be a liberal or conservative; it depended on the issue and how mad something made him. He hated the Vietnam War and Johnson and Nixon for their lies and for causing the death of so many brave young men and women, because Johnson was under the influence of moneymen at Brown and Root and the rest of the corporate criminal class.

But he also wanted to kill protesters when they burned the flag. 

Which side are we on dad? Our side! 

We can’t be the great nation we are if “We the People” can’t come back together and fix things like the horrible mistake WE made in Vietnam. If you have to say “THEY” not “WE” the battle is lost.

Look at the flags, look at us, look at We the People in the parade.

About half the parade in numbers was a huge group of maybe 100 people from Mendocino Indivisible. Mendocino Indivisible are like I said before, the conservatives in this debate are upholding traditional values against indecency (most of them did not like me calling them conservatives, but I’m right, lol) 

They are conservatives against crudity, rudeness, humiliating others publicly, using the office of president to profit and cut off profit to critics, suspension of the Bill of Rights and so much more evil happening right now. 

They are also the liberals, the Sam Adams who protested with vandalism of British Ships in the Boston Tea Party and Patrick Henry, filibustering, disrupting efforts to regulate gunpowder, whiskey, and more so much that King George was said to want the Revolution so he could hang that (expletive) . 

Police and fighters are very often patriots of the highest order. 

America would never have survived without our founding parents creating socialist institutions like police, fire, public libraries and public schools. 

We also need to have our symbol, our parades and our flag, unaltered.

Here is a previous story I wrote about putting a German flag above the American flag.

Check out this story I wrote about the flag

That individual no longer displays the German flag of WWII outside their Fort Bragg home. I called, emailed and left a note on their door, saying I’d like to buy them lunch but they never responded, which is their right of course. 

Pride flags and peace don’t enter into my discussion, nor do any other original creations as they don’t pretend to be the American flag. 

Exactly what is the thin blue line flag? If you ask supporters, it’s a statement about how the police are the line that keeps Democracy working. True. But why does it have to alter the American flag to send this message? 

Everybody now knows that the thin blue line is a symbol of both the right wing and a statement of support for law enforcement.  There is no way those displaying it could think this political message is simply a patriotic one.

The thin blue line flag is interpreted wildly differently by different people and agencies. In Fort Bragg, it became a symbol to remember the beloved Ricky Del Fiorentino, a former Fort Bragg cop, who I can personally attest was a tremendous man in every way (including the one way I am a tremendous man, lol) and deserves to be remembered. I’m not sure if that is still done there. Ill have to ask.

This all happened before BLM and some do see it as simply a support of law and order. But it has also been used as a symbol of racism and unaccountability.  That flag takes the color out of the American flag and uses the blue line on a black flag.  I cringe, but I would never deny you the right to fly it, nor tread on you for doing so.

 I feel Black Lives Matter failed as a movement because it made police the villains, not the rising feudalism and the GOP’s policies, designed to create poverty for almost everyone and wealth for a few.  We spent time hating some cops and fixed nothing and fired up the right to elect Trump. I think this was manipulated to work like this so the globalist power structure could pretend to be concerned. We are so horribly divided, only before the Civil War was American like this.

 As Abe Lincoln said, quoting the Bible, “A House Divided Itself Cannot Stand.”

The American flag became the symbol of We the People during the Civil War more than ever before in our history and the unity led us to become the greatest nation in the world.

We must come together to voluntarily remember the dream of America and live it. We are being threatened with the most intrusive government in our history, with MAGA passing more regulations and laws than anyone can even read, much less ones that they are us can even comprehend.

Like all despots, they attack our symbols and outlaw public expression. The Soviet and Mao did that. 

Humorously in Idaho, they tried with a law that right wing demagogues passed to keep pride flags out of public buildings ended up getting the thin blue line flag banned as well.  

Here is another story I wrote about what the flag means in America

At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, countries were asked to dip their flag to King Edward VII: but the American flag bearer did not. Team captain Martin Sheridan is famously quoted as saying, “this flag dips to no king”, 

And learn about flag etiquette, such as the insult it is to fly some other flag on a level with the American flag, especially for a public agency

Click on this blue writing to get a wonderful piece written by James Humecky  James was sports editor at the Advocate-News when I started in an another age of humanity, a better one. Can you imagine that a newspaper like ours would even have a sports editor?  Impossible in 2025 only thanks to the curse on America from feudalism imposed on us all by corporate filth on Wall Street. James, like me had a mile long Mendocino Coast  resume, most notably as a massage therapist and healer. His was more impressive for the 4th in one respect, as he is a United States Marine (not allowed to say former with those folks).

Here are KOZT’s parade winners.

• The Kelley House Museum celebrating 50 years
• Harvest Market, an independently owned grocery celebrating 50 years
• Winesong, Mendocino Coast Healthcare Foundation’s annual fundraising event, celebrating 40 years
• Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center celebrating 40 years
• Mendocino Masonic Lodge No. 179 celebrating 160 years

Each organization was recognized for its decades of service and contributions to the Mendocino Parade Winners

Three parade judges—Janis McDonald, Ian Roth, and Scott Connelly—reviewed more than 40 entries. Winners in each category are listed below:

Best Animal

1. Freds Stuffed Bears on wagons
2. Marine Mammal Center

Most Creative

1. Gertie the Gorse Monster
2. Petaluma Chicken Pluckers
3. Maids of Honor

 Most Patriotic

1. Indivisible Mendocino
2. Comptche Fire Department
3. Elk Volunteer Fire Department

Best Band

1. Old Growth Jazz Club
2. Mendocino County Safe Space Project

Best Vehicle

1. Not Enough Time
2. Paul Bunyan Days
3. Jim’s Electric Miata

Best Youth

Lucas Gibney’s 10th Birthday

Mendocino Coast Junior Lifeguards

Mendocino Parents for Peace