Sunday, November 09, 2003
What's In a Flag?
Well, according to our old friend, Rick Berke, quite a lot. Sorta....Depending...
In an article with the almost Zen title, "What You Can Say Can't Hurt You Until It Can," Berke takes a whack at the Howard Dean Confederate flag flap and discovers that no one should have been surprised because Dean's been making that point about needing to appeal to Southern whites, including those stars and bars references, all year. So, what was different this time? Context, says Berke. "Context is all," he tells us, which will come as a shock to those of you who've read Berke's concertedly out of context coverage of Al Gore and Bill Clinton.
The context now - Dean's the front runner among eight other Presidential wannabes gunning for Dean; Confederate flags on the back of pickup trucks being an irresistible target, all of them were bound to take shots at it.
Berke's point? If any reader can tell me, please avail yourself of the Comments to do so.
To make Dean look like an amateur? To make the other contenders look like cynical grandstanders? To make Times' readers loath politics and politicians even more than they do already by fixating on the most meaningless details of the political process in an analysis that does nothing more than plug in the already well-known, mainly meaningless, and certainly too oft-repeated cliches of what passes currently for political reporting. Whatever his intentions, Berke handily accomplishes all three.
Let's take a look at how a real journalist discuses the politics of the prior week. Sidney Blumenthal writing in Salon finds a connection between Dean & Da Duking Dems, and last week's triumph of Republican outrage, the disappearing CBS miniseries about The Reagans, uniting them under a title drawn from the lyrics of Dixie, "Old Times There Are Not Forgotten."
Blumenthal also points out that Dean as early as last March had expressed his belief that the Democratic party shouldn't and couldn't give up on getting the votes of white Southeners and any other whites who've been split off by a successful Republican policy of dividing Americans from one another over wedge issues. Unlike Berke, Blumenthal takes the time to give us what Dean actually said then:
For Blumenthal, Dean's mistake last week was his shorthanding of the issue, which left out the context of Nixon and FDR and his own committment to an honest discussion about race. Blumenthal doesn't make the mistake of shorthanding why the Confederate flag is still such a potent wedge, and unlike the rest of the pundit class, who last week seemed to have developed partial amnesia about that symbol's continued potency to stir defensive anger in the hearts of white Southerners, said pundits proclaiming that Dean had alienated both blacks and especially Southern whites, who don't care to see themselves in pickup trucks flying tiny Confederate flags. Maybe not, but an awful lot of them don't care to give up the regular sized version of that flag, especially when flown over state capitals.
Blumenthal is just as good on what happened to make "The Reagans," disappear from the CBS lineup, and finds the connection between that story and the flag flap in Reagan's role as the Republican President who consolidated Nixon's southern strategy, firmly placing the GOP in the position of being the bulwark against any further advances on majority rights by the civil rights movement.
Have I mentioned what a pleasure it is to read a journalist who can actually write well.
Blumenthal reminds us of "certain crucial events" having to do with Reagan's actual words and positions on civil rights whose absence from "The Reagans," didn't bother Gillespie.
Neither the words or positions changed that much during Reagan's presidency.
I recommend you read the whole article. Which brings us to the problem of linking to Salon articles that require one to be a subsriber. At the risk of seeming to be a shill for David Talbot, let me suggest that non-subscribers reconsider. Salon has some of the best left of center reporting and commentary anywhere. You can get Salon Premium with ads for only $22.50 a year. And you can get a month pass/ subscription for $6. All past articles are archived and available.
Yes, Talbot has published Paglia, Sullivan and Horowitz. That's okay with me; in a context like Salon's their bent reasoning and sodden prose shows up ever more clearly by contrast with any article by a Sid Blumenthal.
In an article with the almost Zen title, "What You Can Say Can't Hurt You Until It Can," Berke takes a whack at the Howard Dean Confederate flag flap and discovers that no one should have been surprised because Dean's been making that point about needing to appeal to Southern whites, including those stars and bars references, all year. So, what was different this time? Context, says Berke. "Context is all," he tells us, which will come as a shock to those of you who've read Berke's concertedly out of context coverage of Al Gore and Bill Clinton.
The context now - Dean's the front runner among eight other Presidential wannabes gunning for Dean; Confederate flags on the back of pickup trucks being an irresistible target, all of them were bound to take shots at it.
Berke's point? If any reader can tell me, please avail yourself of the Comments to do so.
To make Dean look like an amateur? To make the other contenders look like cynical grandstanders? To make Times' readers loath politics and politicians even more than they do already by fixating on the most meaningless details of the political process in an analysis that does nothing more than plug in the already well-known, mainly meaningless, and certainly too oft-repeated cliches of what passes currently for political reporting. Whatever his intentions, Berke handily accomplishes all three.
Let's take a look at how a real journalist discuses the politics of the prior week. Sidney Blumenthal writing in Salon finds a connection between Dean & Da Duking Dems, and last week's triumph of Republican outrage, the disappearing CBS miniseries about The Reagans, uniting them under a title drawn from the lyrics of Dixie, "Old Times There Are Not Forgotten."
Blumenthal also points out that Dean as early as last March had expressed his belief that the Democratic party shouldn't and couldn't give up on getting the votes of white Southeners and any other whites who've been split off by a successful Republican policy of dividing Americans from one another over wedge issues. Unlike Berke, Blumenthal takes the time to give us what Dean actually said then:
"I think the Republicans, ever since 1968, with Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, have divided us on race issues. Look, when I go to the South, I talk about race deliberately ... If we're going to have elections about race, we might as well talk about it openly. I want white males, particularly in the South, to come back to the Democratic Party. And the case that FDR made was, look, when was the last time you all got a raise? When was the last time your kids got decent health insurance? What kind of schools do your kids go to if you can't afford a private academy?"
For Blumenthal, Dean's mistake last week was his shorthanding of the issue, which left out the context of Nixon and FDR and his own committment to an honest discussion about race. Blumenthal doesn't make the mistake of shorthanding why the Confederate flag is still such a potent wedge, and unlike the rest of the pundit class, who last week seemed to have developed partial amnesia about that symbol's continued potency to stir defensive anger in the hearts of white Southerners, said pundits proclaiming that Dean had alienated both blacks and especially Southern whites, who don't care to see themselves in pickup trucks flying tiny Confederate flags. Maybe not, but an awful lot of them don't care to give up the regular sized version of that flag, especially when flown over state capitals.
Blumenthal is just as good on what happened to make "The Reagans," disappear from the CBS lineup, and finds the connection between that story and the flag flap in Reagan's role as the Republican President who consolidated Nixon's southern strategy, firmly placing the GOP in the position of being the bulwark against any further advances on majority rights by the civil rights movement.
Have I mentioned what a pleasure it is to read a journalist who can actually write well.
Ronald Reagan and the Confederate flag, after all, have long been for the Southern Republican Party the equivalent of apple pie and motherhood.
(edit)
Once a Republican mole filched a copy of the script, the Republican Party chairman, Ed Gillespie (former chief lobbyist for Enron), assumed the disinterested pose of historian. The owl of Minerva perched on his shoulder, he called on CBS to yank the series or put a warning on the screen that would flash every 10 minutes that it was make-believe.
(edit)
Leslie Moonves, the CBS president, abased himself with ritual abject apologies. In the battle for control of imagery, CBS was no match for the RNC. The Republicans know far better than a network the ruthless business of going negative.
Blumenthal reminds us of "certain crucial events" having to do with Reagan's actual words and positions on civil rights whose absence from "The Reagans," didn't bother Gillespie.
Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (calling it "humiliating to the South"), and ran for governor of California in 1966 promising to wipe the Fair Housing Act off the books. "If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house," Reagan said, "he has a right to do so."
Neither the words or positions changed that much during Reagan's presidency.
I recommend you read the whole article. Which brings us to the problem of linking to Salon articles that require one to be a subsriber. At the risk of seeming to be a shill for David Talbot, let me suggest that non-subscribers reconsider. Salon has some of the best left of center reporting and commentary anywhere. You can get Salon Premium with ads for only $22.50 a year. And you can get a month pass/ subscription for $6. All past articles are archived and available.
Yes, Talbot has published Paglia, Sullivan and Horowitz. That's okay with me; in a context like Salon's their bent reasoning and sodden prose shows up ever more clearly by contrast with any article by a Sid Blumenthal.
