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OF PINS AND PINHEADS.
Barack Obama decides to forgo flag pins:
"Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin because it has become a substitute for "true patriotism" since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Asked about it Wednesday in an interview with KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Illinois senator said he stopped wearing the pin shortly after the attacks and instead hoped to show his patriotism by explaining his ideas to citizens.
"The truth is that right after 9/11 I had a pin," Obama said. "Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security.
"I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," he said in the interview. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism."
Imagine that, rather than simply indulging in the paraphernalia of American freedom, Obama proposes to actually engage in a debate over the ideas and principles which undergird it. (The Chicago Sun-Times says this makes him "sound like a hardened leftist." Your liberal media at work!)
I very much supported, and was personally very moved by, the displaying of flags after 9/11. I think it was important, after the shock and trauma of that day, to grieve and to spend time considering who we are, together, as Americans. Very quickly, however, display of the flag metastasized into a mawkish symbol of tribal identification for the right, which is what it remains. If you front the flag, you're with us. If you don't, you're suspect. I think this obsession with things, furnishings, accoutrements, flag pins, commemorative plates, songs about boots in asses, is perfectly emblematic of patriotism as it exists for much of the right. It's become essentially a form of kitsch. Milan Kundera described this in The Unbearable Lightness of Being:
“Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass. The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! The second tear makes kitsch kitsch.”
The flag pin has little to do with actual patriotism, has much to do with getting misty eyed over the idea of one's patriotism: "Yes, how wonderful that I am a patriot, with other patriots." Conservatives may willingly acquiesce to Bush's dismantling of the constitution, they may cheer for his ceaselessly disastrous foreign policy, but at least they're wearing their flag pins!
Obviously, by eschewing flag pins, Obama's not "ceding the flag," he's ceding the kitsch, and good for him.
--Matthew Duss
COMMENTS (13)
Didn't the Sun-Times publicly switch to an explicitly liberal editorial stance a few months back? Whatever happened with that?
Posted by: JRoth | October 5, 2007 1:54 PM
Per usual, The Onion covered this some time ago.
And has anyone asked Bunnypants, news jockeys, et al why they wear flag lapel pins? What the fuck?
Posted by: ed | October 5, 2007 3:19 PM
It's been the talk of the day over at Volokh conspiracy, which I used to think was a decent blog.
Apparently, this is the "big news" of the last two days.
Posted by: Morat20 | October 5, 2007 4:29 PM
This story reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer refused to wear a ribbon during the AIDS walk.
KRAMER (to organizer at AIDS Walk desk): Uh, Cosmo Kramer?
ORGANIZER: Uh…o.k., you’re checked in. Here’s your AIDS ribbon.
KRAMER: Uh, no thanks.
ORGANIZER: You don’t want to wear an AIDS ribbon?
KRAMER: No.
ORGANIZER: But you have to wear an AIDS ribbon.
KRAMER: I have to?
ORGANIZER: Yes.
KRAMER: See, that’s why I don’t want to.
ORGANIZER: But everyone wears the ribbon. You must wear the ribbon!
KRAMER: You know what you are? You’re a ribbon bully.
Posted by: Dillon | October 5, 2007 5:29 PM
Do we really have to have a conversation about how much flair a Presidential candidate wears?
Posted by: tiparillo | October 5, 2007 5:47 PM
How's about everybody ceding the "kitch" of all those Mexican flags that get waved in my face every time I walk down a Chicago street? What would a red-blooded Mexican hombre do if he spotted a gringo waving the stars-n-stripes on a Mexican street?
Posted by: Barricade Builder | October 5, 2007 8:09 PM
Didn't the Sun-Times publicly switch to an explicitly liberal editorial stance a few months back? Whatever happened with that?
Well, they inaugurated this move by giving "libertarian/conservative" hack Steve Hadley a column space 3 days a week!
Since then Hadley has said he'd be "willing to cut a little slack" to government when such basic rights as Habeas Corpus and Trial by Jury are denied so long as the magic word, 'terrorism' is invoked. (8/19/2007).
He criticized Columbia for inviting Iranian President Ahmadinejad to speak because Ahmadinejad then got a "big stage" basically to open his mouth. (9/25/2007).
I don't know about you, but neither of those views seems particularly "libertarian" to me.
Posted by: leo | October 5, 2007 10:55 PM
And good for him. Barack's a good man, and I think he'll be excellent on foreign policy if he has the good fortune to be elected president.
But to put things in perspective, between our top three candidates:
Senator Hillary Clinton's hand shot up. After hesitating noticeably, Senator Barack Obama joined her. Edwards did not, even though he has used the phrase himself and a policy paper on his Web site refers to "winning the war on terror." And now, in his first interview to explain his turnabout, Edwards tells TIME that he will no longer use what he views as "a Bush-created political phrase."
"This political language has created a frame that is not accurate and that Bush and his gang have used to justify anything they want to do," Edwards said in a phone interview from Everett, Wash. "It's been used to justify a whole series of things that are not justifiable, ranging from the war in Iraq, to torture, to violation of the civil liberties of Americans, to illegal spying on Americans. Anyone who speaks out against these things is treated as unpatriotic. I also think it suggests that there's a fixed enemy that we can defeat with just a military campaign. I just don't think that's true."
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf | October 6, 2007 1:29 AM
Barricade Builder,
See that's the difference between Mexico and the United States. We're a big melting pot, and proud of it.
Posted by: SoccerDad | October 10, 2007 3:24 PM
Where do I get my pro-torture lapel pin?
Posted by: Douglas Watts | October 10, 2007 4:05 PM
Barricade Builder,
I heard that at the U.N. building in NYC they fly the flags of all countries right where everyone can see them.
Posted by: Douglas Watts | October 10, 2007 4:09 PM
What would the red blooded mexican guys do if they saw you waving an american flag in the street somewhere in mexico?
Proably nothing, maybe come up and ask you why your president is such a jackass.
Posted by: Indy | October 10, 2007 4:41 PM
It's not just kitsch, it's the refuge of scoundrels too. Canadian singer-songwriter David Francey wrote this and it's still the best thing I've ever heard about the reaction to 9/11:
We were in Madison, Ohio, on the first anniversary of the events of September 11th, 2001. It was all flags and bunting, a nation dealing with its sorrow in part through a display of patriotism, and a government seeing an opportunity to take advantage of it all. Written at Peter and Nancy Clark's house in Oak Park, Illinois.
(September 27, 2002. Chicago, Illinois)
Fourth of July
I returned to the States one year after
The towers returned to the earth
And the sabers were drawn from their scabbards
They were rattling for all they were worth
And I understand how that could happen
I don't need to ask anyone why
It's September and I can't help but think that
It looks like the Fourth of July
Down on the shores of Lake Erie
They see the political slant
The pursuit of their happiness promised
By the stacks of the nuclear plant
Now there's flags flying on every lamp post
Red white and blue 'gainst the sky
It's September and I can't help but think that
It looks like the Fourth of July
It's the powers that be pay the piper
It's the powers that be call the tune
They want all of us up for the dancing
All howling away at the moon
But my ear's to the ground and I'm listening
I keep watch with a weather eye
It's September and I can't help but think that
It looks like the Fourth of July
Posted by: David W. | October 10, 2007 9:55 PM