I've long admired Bill Moyers' style, from the PBS special and book The Secret Government to The Power of Myth. I even got to meet him once when he was promoting Healing and the Mind. I found him to be a thoughtful and intelligent gentleman. Watching him just gently bring down that ambushing producer from O'Reilly was pure gold.
I'm enjoying his new book, Moyers on Democracy for it's eloquence and relevance to our current state of affairs. There is a chapter contained within it called "The Fight for Public Broadcasting" It's one of the longer chapters in the book but within it, he addresses the non-issue that has become an issue in this Presidential campaign, and makes it a issue again - the infamous flag pin.
Moyers was speaking in the context of the right wing trying to hold up funding for for CPB, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But his words said on air, apply to the now and the idiotic attempts by the right to question not only our patriotism but Barack Obama's.
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I wore my flag tonight. First time. Until now I haven't thought it necessary to display a metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote, pay my taxes, perform my civic duty, speak my mind, and do the best to raise our kids to be good Americans...
Sometimes I would offer a small prayer of gratitude that I had been born in a country whose institutions sustained me, whose armed forces protected me, and whose ideals inspired me; I offered my hearts affection in return. It no more occurred to me to flaunt the flag on my chest than it did to pin my mother's picture on my lapel to her son's love. Mother knew where I stood and so does my country...
So what' this doing here? well, I put it on to take it back. The flag's been hijacked and turned into a logo -- the trademark on a monopoly on patriotism. On those Sunday morning talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if t is the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. During the State of the Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No administration's patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies. And the flag bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's little red book on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread.
But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag on their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American. They are people whose ardor for war grows disproportionately to their distance from the fighting. They're in the same league as those swarms of corporate lobbyists wearing flags and prowling Capitol Hill for tax breaks even as they call for more spending on war.
So I put this on as a modest riposte to men with flags on their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don't have to make it, or approve of bribing governments to join the coalition of the willing (after they first stash the cash). I can put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to Baghdad what bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not the government. And it reminds me that it's not un-American to think that war--except in self defense--is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and diplomacy. Come to think of it standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.
No doubt we will hear it again and again: "He doesn't wear a flag pin." "He's not patriotic enough.""Michelle said said she was not proud of her country." I'm reminded of the time a wingnut was on Dan Abram's show criticizing Obama for not wearing a flag pin, then Abrams asked the wingnut where his was...and of course he wasn't wearing one. It doesn't matter to me whether Barack Obama wears a flag pin or not. I know he loves his country. But I find it demeaning to our flag when I see people wearing it as some sort of fashion accoutrement, or, if you've ever seen Office Space -- Flair. I don't wear a flag pin, not because I don't love my country, but because I love my country too much to contain it in a piece of metal made in China.
Moyers concludes "Standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country." That would make us, the dissenters the malcontents, the progressives who will not sit idly by while our country is mishandled by the right wings of insanity, the real patriots.