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The colors were at least well chosen by the founding curators. (Who would rally around a flag of, say, beige, green and yellow?) From time immemorial and in almost every culture, red has stood for valor and sacrifice, white for virtue and unity, blue for truth and freedom. They are ambivalent, of course. Universally, red is the color both of cardinals and prostitutes, anarchists and patriots; white, of surrender, blue of melancholy. In the U.S. particularly, red can also connote financial trouble (as in ink), blue moody music (as in jazz) and white racism (as in honky). The U.S. was the first nation to put stars on its national flag, and some vexillologists (flag experts) agree with Political Scientist Whitney Smith that the flag should display the familiar circle of 13 stars, leaving out every parvenu state created or attached from 1776 on.
Our Choices. But the Spirit of '76 is celebration, not cerebration. If to cynics the bombardment seems excessive —jingoistic and ingenuous at best, at worst grossly exploitative—Americans should nonetheless take heart from it. Only five years ago, in protest against the U.S. involvement in Indochina, the flag was being burned, burlesqued and spat upon. Today many of the selfsame Americans who chose then to disown their flag are hoisting it high. In a republic, the flag—not a royal family or the trophies of empire—represents in graphic form the experiences and beliefs of its people. As Woodrow Wilson said on America's entry into World War I, "This flag, which we honor and under which we serve, is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and purpose as a nation. It has no other character than that which we give it from generation to generation. The choices are ours." Color America RWB.