Flag Day is one of our nation’s more enigmatic observances. While the resolution passed by the Second Continental Congress some 235 years ago on this day makes clear that the United State of America shall be represented by 13 alternating red and white stripes and a cluster of white stars on a blue fields, there are no confirmed accounts for where this design concept originated. (Apologies to Betsy Ross.) Even the color choices are shrouded in legend.
So too, are the origins of Flag Day itself. Duane Streufert’s site dedicated to the flag’s history recounts the day’s long and winding path of regional enthusiasm that eventually led to a 1949 Act of Congress signed by President Truman. How we are to honor the U.S. Flag is probably best summed up by Streufert’s quotation of the Secretary of Interior, Franklin K. Lane, in 1914; when he said the flag spoke to him with Walt Whitman-esque echoes, saying, “I am what you make me; nothing more. I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself.”
Enter Bill Knight, journalism professor at Western Illinois University and author of the column, “Knight Vision,” found on GalesburgPlanet.com. This past Monday, he looked ahead to Flag Day with an article entitled, “Wave the flag: Shop with patriotism,” that went beyond the normal “Buy American” sloganeering, and touched on the trend of U.S. corporations bringing jobs that were previously outsourced back to American shores:
… [C]orporations may be changing their choices to off-shore and outsource, a business change originally justified as ‘creative destruction.’. […] Caterpillar and six other big U.S. corporations this spring announced a joint effort to find small businesses in the United States to be part of a contractors network. The idea is open to any of the 9 million small businesses in the country, and hundreds have reportedly signed up.
Knight references a spectrum of sources from James Howard Kunstler’s treatise, The Long Emergency, to business reports from the business consulting mega-firm Accenture to illustrate what he refers to as the “adverse consequences” of outsourcing manufactured goods. Many of which we’ve touched on in previous posts about controlling the supply chain and the potential jobs multiplier effect that insourcing the manufacturing of goods would create.
People with disabilities can play a role in this country’s manufacturing Renaissance, between career training programs and contract services to the same kind of assembly, sorting, and fulfillment duties normally shipped overseas, a workforce of willing and capable Americans stands ready to work. If the U.S. Flag is a symbol of our own making, then let’s also make sure Flag Day includes consideration of how employment can help make life matter for these individuals.
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