I am really frightened when I see a large crowd of people waving the American flag.
When I was a child and went to the movies with my parents in the 1940s, there was always a newsreel and it often had pictures of people marching with the Nazi flag and waving it when Hitler spoke. That symbol was a symbol of hate.
I do not want our flag to become a symbol of hate and blind allegiance. Germany learned the hard way.
I was greeted by a front page article in the Gazette this morning (“Hundreds protest flag’s removal,” Nov. 28) accompanied by a picture of a large crowd of veterans and public figures from the area protesting Hampshire College’s temporary removal of the American flag from the campus flagpole. Why? I think this was an inappropriate protest about an issue belonging to the campus.
Many students were trying to resolve their reactions to the election of Trump and Pence because they promote so much intolerance and hatred of so many people. On-campus students, staff, faculty and administrators have been working with the students to help them figure out how to deal with this national symbol appropriately.
Burning the flag was not appropriate, leaving it at half-staff was offensive to some, and leaving the flag up when emotions were so high was not yet a solution. It is appropriate for a college, an institution of learning, to discuss all of the ramifications of flying the national flag and to hear all sides.
I fear that protests like the one reported in the paper are short-sighted and destructive. I think they feed into the ugliness that is spreading in our wonderful democracy.
Moreover, many of the wars our veterans fought had nothing to do with protecting our freedom of speech, but protesting the college’s reaction is a direct assault on this very freedom.
Peggy Anderson
Granby