RE: [Marxism] French elections--on the US flag

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

American Flags
posted to www.marxmail.org on March 24, 2004

Last night as I watched coverage of the 
Bipartisan Commission on terrorism chaired by Bob 
Kerrey, the war criminal ex-Senator who currently 
runs the New School University with an iron fist, 
I was bowled over by the garish, 
rhinestone-studded American flag on Madeleine 
Albright's jacket. This was not a postage-stamp 
sized pin, but something about the size of a bar of soap.

Meanwhile, John Kerry cannot be spotted without 
the obligatory flag on his lapel. After September 
11, liberal newsman Dan Rather began wearing an 
American flag pin in his lapel. So does sportscaster Werner Wolf.

The flag is ubiquitous in NYC storefront windows 
in my neighborhood. The Chinese restaurant, the 
CVS pharmacy, the Russian barber shop, where I get my buzzcuts, all have them.

People in my building wear them, either on their 
lapel or as a pin on a pocketbook. There is an 
American flag on the doorman's desk as there is 
at nearly all the security guard stations at Columbia University.

All of these flags are sported for one and one 
reason only--to tell the onlooker that they 
support the war against terrorism and that they support the president.

The use of the flag to intimidate dissent began 
with Richard Nixon who wore the pin himself, as 
did all of his top aides. Ever since then, there 
have been repeated attempts to use the flag as an ideological weapon.

On September 25, 1988 The Boston Globe reported 
on how the first George Bush waved the flag 
against his opponent from Massachusetts Governor 
Michael Dukakis, a contest whose themes will 
likely be played out this year between his son and John Kerry:

There are numerous parallels between the Bush and 
Nixon presidential campaigns, as well as Nixon 
and Agnew's "law and order" assault on Democratic 
congressional candidates in 1970.

Joe McGinniss, the author of "The Selling of the 
President," an account of Nixon's media campaign 
in 1968, recalled that "the flag was a consistent 
motif" in Nixon commercials that year. Bush's 
carefully staged events, which protect him from 
reporters' questions, are also similar to 
Republican activities in 1968, when Nixon's 
handlers shielded him from the press, McGinniss said.

>>Republican candidates proudly wore American 
flag lapel pins like war decorations that year.

After Agnew was criticized for his approach, he 
worked a new line into his speeches. He said he 
did not question anyone's "patriotism," only the 
"judgment of the radical liberals."

Bush uses the same language this year. When he 
assails Dukakis on the Pledge of Allegiance, Bush 
adds, "I don't question his patriotism, I question his judgment.<<

So Kerry's campaign, in seeking to avoid 
Dukakis's mistake, is playing up both the flag 
and his patriotism, as demonstrated by his 
military record. Whatever value this has in 
electing Kerry is secondary to the effect it has 
in reinforcing the "patriotic" mood that has gripped the nation.

After September 11th, the insufferable Todd 
Gitlin put a positive spin on the proliferation of American flags:

>>The attack stirs, in other words, patriotism ? 
love of one?s people and desire to keep them from 
being hurt anymore. And then, too, the wound is 
inverted, transformed into a badge of honor. It 
is translated into protestation (?we didn?t 
deserve this?), and pride (?they can?t do this to 
us?). Pride can go toward the quest for justice, 
the rage for punishment, the pleasures of 
smugness. The dangers are obvious. But it should 
not be hard to understand that the American flag 
sprouted first, for many of us, as a badge of 
belonging, not a call to shed innocent blood.<<

full: http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-2-47-105.jsp

I would challenge this interpretation on two 
grounds. First, we do not need a "badge of 
belonging". The iconography of the flag is not 
meant to draw people together. It is to *exclude* 
people who are not members of the homeland. The 
post-September 11th period has been marked by a 
growing xenophobia directed against the French, 
the Germans and any nation that refuses to toe 
the line on the US wars of expansion. Also, it 
certainly is a call to shed innocent blood. 
10,000 Iraqis have been killed since the war 
began. Until the American people can begin to 
understand their suffering in the same terms as 
the WTC tragedy, no progress will be made toward 
peace and reconciliation. To begin that process, 
it will be necessary to reduce the role of the 
flag to what it once was, an official symbol that 
belongs on Post Offices and other federal buildings.


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