Proudly Waved my American Flag .. that was Made in China

Yesterday several friends of mine sent the usual holiday greetings (always the same friends - always the same greetings). One particular greeting literally made me laugh out loud and I forwarded it on to about twenty other people. It said "Happy 4th everyone - proudly wave our American flags made in China". I found it to be terribly amusing. That is the kind of thing that he says - he is quite the character. Well some of the people that I forwarded it to caught the humor and the irony of the statement. Some, however, did not. I got a few messages telling me that I was unpatriotic and one that said that I wasn't normal - to which I replied "Thank God". Who the heck wants to be normal?

So all day yesterday while we were out shopping, I looked at American flags and sure enough - I did not find one that was made here in the good ol' USA. I find that terribly sad. We are using symbols of our pride in our nation that are not even made in our nation. What is wrong with this picture? I know - it all comes down to money. Why would we pay $2 for a flag made in the USA when we can get an inferior, cheaper one for fifty cents that was imported here from China. Sure the colors may run, and there are not the correct number of stars, or the little flag pole gives you splinters - but hey - you saved a whole buck fifty on that thing. That's a whole buck fifty that you can spend buying cheap fireworks (also made in China) that can set your grass on fire and blow off one of your kid's fingers. Or you could buy another beer so that you can make a real fool out of yourself on the lake yelling at women half of your age - because that is how our founding fathers must have wanted us to spend the holiday. Money well spent - I say !

I also find it terribly ironic that the people who are complaining about the state of the economy are the ones who are flocking to "supercenters" in droves to buy cheaply made crap that they don't really need. I challenge you to look on the packages of the things that you are buying to see where they really are made. Just because a company was founded in this country does NOT mean that it's products are made here. In fact the previous administration gave huge tax cuts for companies who transferred manufacturing to other countries all in the name of free trade. For example, when we decided to trade in our gas guzzling sport utility vehicle we did some research into where cars are actually manufactured. You would be shocked- we were ! We ended up with a Nissan. A Nissan that was made in the USA. Yes - it's a Japanese company but the car was made here. The "American" car salespeople couldn't even tell me where their cars were made. That didn't seem "right" to us.

My thoughts are that maybe we should be declaring some sort of Independence Day ever single day. We should be seeking independence from other countries for the cheap crap that we buy thinking that it is going to make us happy, when all it really does is fund poor labor practices in other countries and put our American workers out of work.