Flag farce

Well, on we go with the farce of changing our flag. These are the final four designs that will go up against our existing flag in a nationwide referendum. The whole project is a vanity project for our Prime Minister, who is embarrassed at being seated under an Australian flag at diplomatic shindigs, because no one in the larger international world knows the difference between our flag and the Australian flag.  He is spending $26 million taxpayer dollars on this vanity project.  There is so much wrong with this that I don't know where to start. 
     He likes the silver fern, so no coincidence that three of the final designs feature silver ferns. The black and white flag bottom left is also a fern, but a fern frond; it has already been dubbed the "hypnoflag" and makes me feel nauseous when I look at it. It's the visual equivalent of a migraine headache. The other designs are ho-hum. Versions of these designs have been around for years on commercial packaging, especially notable as a range of disposable plastic picnic-ware. (Really - I am not making this up). 
     Our Prime Minister worships at the altar of the national rugby team and the silver fern is their emblem. So in effect we may be saluting the All Blacks every time the flag is raised, if it gets changed. I hate, hate, hate this idea. There is so much more to this country than bloody rugby! And the silver fern is often seen by foreigners as a white feather, not a happy symbol at all.
      I think the thing that really makes me puke about this, is our Prime Minister's belief that national pride can be manufactured, changed and altered as his whim goes. He keeps talking about "brand New Zealand", as if this is just a branding exercise. There's something uncomfortably totalitarian about this; he and his marketers are going to force it down our throats until we accept it. Of course, those who want to keep the old flag are being stigmatised as " a few very active persons with negative views" who are going to spoil the brave new world for everyone else. 
      Mr Key, this is a nation, not a corporation. People fought for that flag and died for it. Leave it alone.