Sometimes it’s associated with a British band, and sometimes it associated with people who are banned.
It’s about pills, madness and control. It’s about healing.
It’s about awesome fashions and it’s about bad accessories.
It’s about poor decisions by presidents.
It’s about corporate control and corporate profits.
It’s about death to ours and death to theirs.
Sometimes, it’s about imperialism.
It’s about religious freedom and freedom of religion.
It’s about fake sportspersons and real sportspersons.
It’s about God and it’s about children.
It’s about we the people, not them the people.
It’s about bigotry and it’s about a permanent underclass.
It’s about cold beer, cupcakes and weed.
Images sources: Rolling Stones lips; Prison bars, from Teen in Jail; American flag of pills, by Talia Marisa; Heels, Fashion Munster; Spectacles, Linda Lovelock wears American flag sunglasses during the 2010 Tax Day Tea Party April 15, 2010 in Pleasanton, California. Tea Parties were held across the United States to denounce tax day. More than a thousand people attended the Tax Day Tea Party at the Alameda County Fairgrounds. (April 14, 2010 – Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America); Bush family; Corporation flag; ISBN flag, via Adbusters; Coffin at night, Sudanese men look at the flag-draped coffin of U.S. diplomat John Granville, 33, who worked for the USAID, as it is received by U.S. officials in Khartoum, Jan. 3, 2008. (AP); US flag bomb graphic, via Daily Bleed; Imperialism flag, Christian cross, on eBay; Star-spangled burqa; Rocky Balboa shorts; Olympic winners, via Astropix (Teammates in the USA women’s 4 x 100 meter relay swim team stop in front of a giant American flag to wave to fans after winning the gold medal and setting a world record in the finals of the event during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. From left are Jenna Johnson, Dara Torres, Carrie Steinseifer, and Nancy Hogshead.); Child’s drawing, via Fire Andrea Mitchell; School class photo, via Valley Community Newspaper (The Girl Scouts who meet for troop activities at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School had an American flag flown over the nation’s capitol on Dec. 6 to honor the school. Photo Credit: Unknown); Immigration wall graphic, by Luis Boix; “Does my fag offend you?” bumper sticker; Immigrant labour graphic, by La Mustia; Supermarket beers, via Corks and Kegs; Cupcakes, The Cupcake blog; Spliff, from Rolling Stone via The War on Drugs is a War on Me.
Prison Photography 
4 comments
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July 4, 2011 at 8:20 am
Pop9
Amazing and eloquent!
July 4, 2011 at 11:42 am
Stan B.
Fun… and educational!
July 4, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Blake Andrews
Curious to hear comparisons to the Union Jack. Do Brits treat their flag in a similar way? Any laws regarding burning for example? Or other silliness?
July 13, 2011 at 10:33 am
petebrook
Blake. The Union Jack is most commonly seen at the BBC proms, cricket matches and EDL rallies. It’s not been usurped quite as completely as the English flag – St George’s cross flag – has by the racists. A few years ago prime minister Gordon Brown called for the English or British (I can’t remember) to take back the flag and make it a cause for pride, as opposed to a useful face cover as you wanged a molotov cocktail at riot police. I don’t Brown really got very far. Then something a bit silly like the royal wedding comes about and we see bunting and tri-color revelry. Don’t think anyone has really thought about whether burning it matters as it’s only an object, as opposed to the American position that it it is a hallowed piece of cloth into which all shared philosophy of the land is stitched. Stitched in China.