Score another victory for the blog and social media. As many of you probably already know, Hunt Communities has agreed to let the flag mural to be painted at the Canutillo school. Before Lisa Turner (U on social media; and yes she has admitted to it so I am not outing anyone here) and David Karlsruher decide to rewrite history again, I am going to update you on the facts about this debacle.
KFOX first broke the story about how the flag mural did not fit the covenants of the community. Initially, the homeowner’s association was blamed for the color fiasco until KFOX reported that it was actually Hunt Communities that objected to the flag colors. The rest of the news media didn’t report the story because, as I pointed out, it made Woody Hunt look bad.
Useful idiot MaxPowers, on behalf of Hunt, tried to create the illusion that the issue was about the laws governing the use of the US flag, after I pointed out the hypocrisy of Hunt’s company objecting to the color scheme. Hunt, as many of you know, derives much of its income from government contracts, especially at the federal level.
The notion that a mural of the US flag violates federal law is laughable but they had nothing else to rely on and thus they were forced to create the fiction of some dubious violation of a law. From there I wrote numerous articles reinforcing the hypocrisy of Hunt Communities objecting to the red-white-blue color scheme.
Under much intense social media pressure, Hunt has finally relented.
Of course, Hunt needs to save face so they have created a public relations campaign designed to distract from the facts.
In the latest public relations campaign, Hunt attempts to portray itself as someone working within the framework of dubious legal restrictions. They have continued to perpetuate the fallacy that a flag mural could violate flag laws. They have also created the notion that the whole debacle was nothing more than to protect the needs of the residents of the community.
They did this by creating the fiction that some unnamed federal agency needed to “approve” the flag mural and that the residents of the community needed to be behind the measure. They are so desperate to put the bad publicity behind them that they rushed forth a “resolution” to the problem by approving the flag colors. The rush for approval betrays the fiction they tried to create for the community.
Hunt’s two conditions for allowing the flag colors are that the flag mural needed to be “approved” by some federal entity and that the majority of the residents needed to support it. The majority would be 50%.
As I have written before, there is no “federal” entity that has the authority to approve a flag mural. Hunt was tied into the fiction they created and thus they needed to invent an agency to “approve” the flag. According to KVIA, that agency is the “American Foreign Legion.” (KVIA: Canutillo ISD, Hunt Communities agree on painted flag at Reyes Elementary; Rodriguez, Ashley; March 30, 2015)
The problem is that there is no official American Foreign Legion, much less a federal agency named the American Foreign Legion. Whether this is a miscommunication between Hunt and the reporter is unknown at this point, however, it is fiction, nonetheless.
The El Paso Times, for its part, laid out the same framework for the approval, except that the “agency” is the “American Legion.” (El Paso Times: Developer, Canutillo ISD come to agreement on flag mural on school; Anderson, Lindsey; March 30, 2015)
The American Legion, according to its website is a “patriotic veterans organization devoted to mutual helpfulness.” The legion’s website offers that it was “incorporated by Congress in 1919.” They have an “Americanism Commission” that among other things, they “protect” the “U.S. flag from physical desecration.” Aha! I can feel the collective exclamations from Hunt’s useful idiots. Not so fast, the Legion does not offer any information online about the use of the flag motif on a mural.
However, in their “Questions & Answers” they offer two helpful answers. The majority of their answers addresses the use of an actual United States flag. Two of the answers addresses images of flags, and I believe their position on a mural can be inferred from their answers.
The first is an answer to the question about using “a flag decal” on a motor vehicle. The answer makes the point that the “Flag Code does not offer much in terms of clear and concise guidance.” They go on to add that displaying a decal of a flag on a motor vehicle would be “technically correct.”
I realize the useful idiots are going to argue that the issue is that flag depiction at the school violated the code because of the number of stripes. Before they get too excited, they should take a minute to read what the legion has to say about wearing “an item of clothing that looks like the United States flag,” the operative words being “looks like.” A flag mural “looks like” a flag.
The legion responds, “unless the clothing is made from an actual United States flag, there is NO breach of flag etiquette whatsoever.” [original emphasis] Clearly, a mural is not made from an actual flag.
As you can see, there never was an issue about the legality of the flag. It was nothing more than a distraction postured by a useful idiot and exasperated by a company desperate to end the bad publicity. Of course, the incompetence of the news media helped as well.
The other item that Hunt used to create the fiction was that the residents of the community needed to support the colors. Desperate to end the bad publicity, Hunt accepted that “23 percent” was a majority and therefore acceded to the flag colors on the wall.
As you can clearly see, the fiction evaporated and Woody Hunt’s company needed to save face, thus the fictitious approval and the “majority” support from less than half of the residents is now the fiction they are peddling.
This was never about flag etiquette but rather the imposition of one individual’s personal whims upon a community. When the hypocrisy of Woody Hunt not wanting the red, white and blue colors while making money from the government the colors represent became obvious, he relented and allowed the flag colors to be painted.
Much to the chagrin of the useful idiots and Lisa Turner, this is but one more example of how exposing the insolence and stupidity in the community, through my blog, helps individuals organize and make a change in their community for the better.
It is you Martin that is living in a fantasy world.
The school district is dead wrong on this. Hunt Communities did the right thing after making sure the residents approved the colors and the flag code was not violated. Get a life Martin, you had no impact on this.
Two in a row Martin! Good job!
With all the real problems in this world why were people paid to worry about this. Put a super large flag in front of school and teach kids how to properly honor the flag in raising it and lowering/folding it. And then put all those people to work on real problems
Emboldened by the ballpark and lots of other “progress” projects around town (facilitated in part by my grafting city Rep. Niland who was put in place by Hunt & Foster) it is no surprise to me that a “Hunt Community” would have the hubris to do something like this. Cheers to Canutillo ISD, and likely the Reyes family, for standing up to the oligarch douchebaggery that’s trying to take over this city.