Distress, flags and West Bend, WI

Some days you just can't make these things up. Other days, things happen and the response is so predictable it makes you think life has been reduced to caricature. Dateline: Dumbassville, WI from Monday, Feb. 13.

School’s upside-down flag was no protest

‘Distress’ display waves red flag for some

The West Bend School District wants everyone in the community to know there was no symbolic protest Monday involving the United States flag at Badger Middle School.
What was an inadvertent mishap, district officials said, was perceived by some to be a political act.
Several residents complained when they saw the flag apparently at half staff and upside down when they dropped off their children to start the school day.
And in what could be construed as a commentary on the strained relationship between members of this Republican-majority community and its teachers, some jumped to the conclusion the flipped flag must have been an intentional protest by at least one member of the school staff. Monday marked the one year anniversary of Gov. Scott Walker’s “Act 10” bill, which restricted the ability of public employee unions to negotiate contracts.
The United States Flag Code requires a “flag shall be flown at half-staff upon the death of principal figures of the United States Government and the Governor of a state, territory, or possession, as a mark of respect to their memory” ... and “should never be displayed with union (the blue field of stars) down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property,” wrote district resident Mary Pat Roth in an email sent to the Daily News and District Superintendent Ted Neitzke.
“To display the flag in this manner for any other reason is disrespectful to the flag, our country and to the men and women who fought to keep our country safe.”
Roth called seeing the flag in that state a “disturbing sight.”
This flag flap was an accident caused by wear and tear, Neitzke said.
The flag pole at Badger is lighted, so the flag is always flying, the district superintendent said. “Over the weekend, a grommet wore out” and “a clasp wore through” the flag, he said.
That dropped the flag down and it ended up fluttering in the wind upside down because it “was only hanging from the bottom,” he said.
“By 8 a.m. it was down, repaired and back up,” he said, flying right-side up and at full mast.
Since there was a Saturday event at Badger and no one noticed anything wrong with the flag, Neitzke said, the best guess is the flag flipped sometime Sunday or early Monday morning.
“I have no reason in the world to believe it was anything else than that,” he said.
However, that explanation was not good enough for some, including Roth, who wrote:
“I immediately placed a call to Badger Middle School, and spoke with Andi Pintens (an office assistant) to inquire as to the reason for this inappropriate display. She informed me that ‘the wind turned the flag upside down and lowered it half staff’ and that ‘it was now fixed.’
“Mr. Neitzke, you and I both know the wind can do many things. One thing it cannot do is fly a flag upside down at half staff.
“Considering this is the one-year anniversary of the budget war between Gov. Walker and the unions, with the unions allegedly planning to demonstrate at the Capital and at his home, it is my belief that ‘someone’ decided to use the flag at Badger Middle School to make a statement.”
Neitzke said there is a locked box protecting the flag pole rope and pulley from vandalism, which only one member of Badger’s maintenance staff can unlock.
“I am proud to have many family members who have fought to keep our nation free,” Roth wrote. “I do not want my children to go to school and learn that teacher’s collective bargaining privileges are a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.
She concluded her email: “Consider this letter a formal complaint. I ask that you look into this situation, learn who the responsible person(s) are, discipline accordingly, and respond to this email with the affirmation of these requests. I await your response.”
Neitzke said besides receiving similar emails from Roth and others, he was also contacted by Scott [sic, Mark] Belling, a conservative radio personality in Milwaukee, asking about the flag protest. On his blog Boots & Sabers, Daily News columnist Owen Robinson had this to say under the heading “Distress Call” Monday afternoon: “I’ve heard that the American Flag was being flown at half mast and upside down in front of Badger Middle School in West Bend this morning. Today is the anniversary of the introduction of Act 10. Does anyone have a picture?”  Responding to Robinson’s request, Kewaskum’s prominent conservative, Kevin Scheunemann, a village trustee, responded: “Even if you catch a picture ... school district may say its (sic) honor to Whitney Houston, which may be worse than if it was done for Act 10.
“Balancing the state budget, getting control over the out of control union rules and benefits for local units of government is now a tragedy?
“If it is, the public school is truly failing to educate, just on this issue alone.”
Other blog viewers expressed similar doubts Monday’s flag display was an accident.
Neitzke said the district’s teachers are professionals and would not do such a thing.
Displaying the American flag at Badger 24/7 on weekends might have to end, just to avoid any future misunderstanding like this, Neitzke said.
While he understands people’s suspicions in today’s political climate and accepts their right to email anyone they choose, Neitzke said, it is disappointing people “just assumed it was a protest.”
He said, “It broke and now no one believes me. It’s sad.” 
   
If you can stomach it, I invite you to look at the comments for "concerned citizens" at BS (linked). Then, if you haven't already, read Richard Hofstadter's "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Here is the essay in PDF format that is expanded and unabridged.
It is rather difficult to find a relevent analogy for what this situation is. As is the norm, most denizens of West Bend are pretty aloof to politics. On the one hand there is a minority of extremists who feel the town's librarians, teachers, social workers, and so on are an occupation army indoctrinating the young. On the other, a small number of residents who support the efforts of these professionals to educate and enlighten. Most of these fine citizens are not native to Washington County, as are the educators. Perhaps the situation is more akin to missionaries in a hostile land, trying to civilize the barbarians. It is suprizing that ginny, mary, kevin, and the other barbarian chieftains are able to use a computer but they must have been receptive to some sort of education at some point. Given their vicious, paranoid attitude toward the "outsiders" where everything is a conspiracy to pry them away from their backward beliefs, it is suprizing they can communicate at all.
Any rational educator would look at this hostile environment and immediately abandon them to clicking and grunting their way back to barbarism, living in mud huts and wearing only the hides of animals they can catch. This is a city so hostile to public services that simple maintenance of things they supposedly care about, like the flag, has become difficult. And when entropy sets in, it is not the result of starving schools of the resources they need to even minimally function because of hostility to taxes, but those bad, greedy teachers feebly protesting our fearless leader.