When a national flag is available, distress may be indicated by flying it upside down, or tying a knot in it and flying it upside down.
Actually, the 13-star American flag is no longer official but it does support the spirit that a dwindling number of Americans respectfully feel toward Patrick Henry and many others who fought the formation of a central bureaucratic state. No sooner than the centralized national state came into existence trouble began. Whiskey Rebellion, Shays Rebellion, Civil War and many other internal upheavals including labor struggles too numerous to mention.
The Republic died at the time of the Civil War and with it the rise of powerful corporations. Then came the Democracy phase which never really developed since their was no proportional representation. Only two corporate gangs called Republicans and Democrats.
Starting at the turn of the last century we slid into the status of empire. Policing the world and the rise of monopoly capitalism, along with Gun Boat diplomacy. I do not fly the present flag because it's now the symbol of empire. I was raised respecting the flag but I learned as an adult it had no real connection to the Articles of Confederation which was Representative of Free and Independent states.
So as not to salute the flag of a dying empire I choose to go back to a flag symbol of what the country was supposed to be before it slid into empire.
You don't have to love a corrupt government or its symbols to love your country.
