Raggedy Sen. Chambers mocks the flag

Dear Editor,

During his February 22nd speech on the floor of the Unicameral, state senator Ernie Chambers called the American flag a “rag,” and compared Old Glory to a “swastika,” The senator made his inflammatory remarks while criticizing LB399, a bill which would update civics requirements in Nebraska schools to improve student literacy in civics, history, economics, finance, and geography. Senator Chambers said the following:

“I don’t come here for this rag every day, and it’s a rag. That’s all it is to me …When you show a way to persuade Jews to sanctify and worship the swastika – when you show me that, I’ll come up here and stand while you all hypocritically pretend that rag is something that it definitely is not.”

While outrageous, his remarks are hardly surprising. After all, this is the man who prefers to dress in “rags.” Chambers has carried his banner of perpetual victimhood for 81 years, so Omaha’s tired old tiger is not about to change his stripes. While Senator Chambers never misses an opportunity to spew his venomous hatred for the very nation whose 37th State has repeatedly rewarded him with this bully pulpit from which to launch his toxic anti-American diatribes, I nevertheless desire to inform his ignorance …

My paternal grandfather and two great uncles served in the U.S. Expeditionary Forces, in France, during WWI. Three of my grandfather’s five sons served in the Navy, in the Pacific, during WWII – two on Destroyers that survived Japanese kamikaze attacks. The forth was an Army medic in the Philippines. The youngest son, my late father, being 4F, served in the civilian Air Observation Corps. Several of my friends served in Vietnam – one did four tours of duty. All served under that esteemed banner the senator from Omaha considers a “rag.”

My uncles fought and sacrificed so to defend this nation against a tyranny I doubt Ernie Chambers ever knew, and should thank God he will likely never know. Yet he dares compare our nation’s symbol of unity to that of the Nazi swastika. Chambers – an irreligious, impudent, yet free man – relentlessly works to create factions, oblivious to the irony; for he and those like him spread the spiteful seeds of disunity from which racism grows.

Senator Chambers, is there a number tattooed into your forearm? Are you constrained to wear some symbol of ethnicity upon your ragged attire? Is your religion despoiled, your livelihood disallowed, your home ransacked and burned, your possessions dispersed? Are you forced into servile labor? Are you or any of your relatives wasting in death camps? I’m confident each of these questions would objectively be answered in the negative.

Ironic it is then that Ernie Chambers is an avowed atheist – who, in 2007, attempted to “sue God” – for in that light he, rather than Old Glory, has more in common with those whose banner was the “swastika."

Senator Chambers, you would not likely be here to make such disparaging remarks, if not for the sacrifice of ordinary Americans who served under that “rag,” who came from all walks of life – every creed, race, and ethnicity – and who died by the hundreds of thousands to defeat those marching beneath the swastika. More pointedly, that bent cross represents a political ideology similar to your own leftist leanings – for the Nazis also thought of themselves as “perpetual victims” in need of a scapegoat. You condemn hypocrisy, senator; but I would advise you pull the log from your own eye, before pointing out the sliver in that of your neighbor’s.

Furthermore, Senator Chambers, you would have no platform from which to hurl your mockery, if not for the millions of American civilians who, with hearts devoted to that “rag,” kept our soldiers supplied with material and moral support in their fight against German National Socialism, Italian Fascism, and Japanese Imperialism. Neither would you maintain the right to run for elected office, if not for the present two million active and reserve American soldiers who salute that same “rag,” upholding their oath to defend those freedoms whose symbol is that battle worn banner you so “courageously” disparage from the relative safety of your senate seat.

However, what alarms me most – even more than your arrogant display of ignorant cynicism – is that there exists equally ignorant and cynical Nebraskans in numbers sufficient to repeatedly re-elect you. Humility is a virtue you apparently do not esteem; nor, it seems, is shame within your capacity. I am wont to believe that your constituents would remove you from the office you have again profaned, but we both know they will likely continue to dishonor our state legislature with your ignominious “raggedy” presence.

Senator Chambers, you may use your office to shower scorn upon the symbol of our nation’s union – but, for that icon of ideals that you take for granted, uncounted millions in this world would give all they have to call their own. She lay solemnly over the caskets of thousands of America’s war dead and veterans – including those of my grandfather and uncles. She represents the sacred bond, the shield that stands between our liberties and the evil ideology you casually toss around for political theater. She may be tattered, shot full of holes and strained at every seam, but she’s no “rag,” senator – she’s our nation’s flag.

Bruce C. Desautels

Stratton, Neb.