The striking thing about the 17 or so American flags rippling over State Street like giant red, white, and blue bedsheets on a clothesline is how filthy they are. I noticed the soot in the stripes last Saturday when I stood atop a planter on the corner of State and Washington. I was trying to get a better view of the “fashion show” going on there. The sidewalk show was sponsored by the “anti-interventionist” Pledge of Resistance in protest of the July 3 fireworks display over Lake Michigan. Field’s picked up the tab for this year’s fireworks and publicized them as a “Salute to the Military.” For those unable to see the promised “exploding yellow ribbons” live, Fox 32 agreed to broadcast the display.
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I first became aware of the depth of the store’s patriotism one evening back before the welcome-home parade. I was wandering aimlessly about downtown, a little strange from being a little hungry, when I was startled by the appearance of the big flags at Washington and State, pristine and pure, just off the truck from the flag factory. The flags themselves weren’t so weird; it was the flags in combination with the window mannequins, the music coming from the speakers at Field’s, and the noise from the street preacher at Randolph and State. I stood counting the flags moving in the early evening sun, wondering how long they’d been up there, and I kept losing track, from being a little hungry. As I counted, Ella finished off “Stormy Weather” and began to sing “It’s nice work if you can get it” through the speakers, mannequins with cold plastic poses sported 1940s swimwear, and the preacher was telling passersby, “If you’re a liar, turn away from your lies. If you’re a hypocrite, turn away from your hypocrisy.”
The TWAT team started out doing street performances critiquing the media’s war coverage, or lack thereof, back in the days of the antiwar protests last winter. Now they mocked the deal between Field’s and Fox 32. TWAT Team actors darted around the fashion show, pretending to capture it with cardboard cameras. Schechter imitated a TV anchor, at one point asking the Mother of All Patriotism to explain why she was cutting up her Field’s credit card. “Marshall Field’s is honoring patriotism as the military. They are trying to tell us what patriotism is to us on our day of independence. Killing children of another country isn’t how independence is won.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Bill Stamets.
