I would like to preface this latest blog with a word of praise for former CBS News Anchorman Dan Rather. I just read an excellent address he gave to the National News Conference for Media Reform (see "Dan Rather Slams Corporate News at National Conference for Media Reform, http://www.truthout.org/article/dan-rather-slams-corporate-news-conference...) In it, he said that asking tough questions of the administration and reporting them has become more difficult since 9/11. Much tougher even than during the era of Vietnam, when he was covering Presidents like Johnson and Nixon. He is right-- this is what I meant when I said that the nation is far more united and hence far less free today than it was in the nineteen-sixities and seventies-- and it once again makes us wonder how so much information concerning U.S.-sponsored torture could be nonetheless reaching the public, for it certainly could not be because the press has become more conscientious in fulfilling its duty of watchdog. It can only be because our government wants us to know that it tortures, so as to strike terror into the hearts of its opposition, a thesis that conflicts completely with Darius Rejali's notion that torture is an inevitable concomitant of democracy.
But to return to Rather, he attributes the change to the fact that in his early days, although the administrations he covered tried to put the heat on the news organizations for which he worked, that never stopped the press from asking tough questions and reporting news unfavorable to the administration because "back then, my bosses took the heat, so I didn't have to. They did this so the story could get told, and so the public could be informed. But it is rare now to find a major news organization owned by an individual, someone who can say, in effect, 'the buck stops here'." One thinks of William Randolph Hearst, who was certainly not averse to making money, but who made it, in his early days in my own San Francisco, by muckracking journalism and exposure of the undue influence of business giants such as Southern Pacific. What Rather is talking about is what Burnham called the transition from capitalist to managerial society-- from the individual owner, who might well latch on to some public grievance and make it a cause celebre, to the corporate managers-- or CEOs who have no independent ideas but have attained their position solely through their ability to increase corporation profits. Being essentially similar to the government bureacrats their reporters are covering, they find it easy to cooperate with them and stifle those journalists who challenge the powers that be.
That said, let us move on to the major topic of this blog-- so appropriate as Flag Day approaches. Why is it that, when I walk down the street of my suburban neighborhood-- which I'm sure is no different from any suburban neighborhood in America today-- I feel as if I am walking down the streets of Nuremberg during a Nazi Party Rally? Because the American flag has ceased to be a symbol of patriotism. Those people who display it at all times-- and not just on patriotic holidays-- are not expressing their love for their country, but rather their support for our government's criminal policies. I remember going into a library soon after 9/11. I wanted to speak to the librarian, but when I saw a flag taped on the window of her office, I turned around and walked out. I wish I had stayed and given her hell. Because what she was doing was uncalled for and in fact illegal. It was the expression of a political opinion. The flags-- both U.S. and California-- flying outside the library were perfectly acceptable: they only meant, "this is a government institution". But not the flag on her door. Nine-eleven was a crime, but the interpretation that the Bush Administration put upon it-- that it was an "attack upon America"-- was by no means inevitable.
Many countries have suffered from terrorism. The British Isles have for many years been suffering from the attacks of the Irish Republican Army-- and this has not lead to war or a frenzy of pseudo-patriotism. Terrorism is a crime against humanity, not against a particular country, and must be fought by all countries alike, under the aegis of the United Nations. Of course I do not believe that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out by Islamic extremists-- I believe that they were the work of our own government. But say that I'm wrong. Even if they were carried out by Islamic extremists, the logical reaction could very well have been to treat these people as criminals on a grand scale, and not representatives of any power which could possibly "declare war on America". The reaction of Congress in passing the Patriot Act (much less the highly dangerous Military Commissions Act) was not logical and inevitable, because there was no reason whatsoever to curtail the rights of American citizens just because this country had been so unfortunate as to suffer a terrorist attack. The first heads to roll should have been those who are charged with protecting the American public and who failed so conspicuously to carry out their duty-- the heads of the CIA, FAA, and those military leaders whose duty it is to provide early warning of impending attacks. The president himself should have been subject to impeachment for having allowed such a thing to take place on American soil. Yet exactly the opposite happened.
Those who display flags, and signs saying "God Bless America", are by so doing signaling that they accept the Big Lie, which does not concern the question of who was really responsible for 9/11 but rather the interpretation of that event as an "attack upon America". For it is from widespread acceptance of that interpretation, not from the attacks themselves, which all the threats to liberty which we see today spring. At the very outset, the majority of the American people, including the members of Congress, knuckled under to an interpretation of the attacks which is essentially fascist. They viewed them as some equivalent of Pearl Harbor, requiring unquestioning and enforced unity of response among Americans, and turned not upon their government, as they should have, for failing to protect the victims, but upon whole peoples (Muslims of course) and those of their fellow citizens who did not happen to share the "party line". What has happened in America since 9/11 is in fact a silent Gleichschaltung, a synchronization of all elements of political life to serve fascist purposes. In Nazi Germany, that Gleichschaltung was enforced by Hitler-- here in America, to its great shame, it has been voluntary. Those who display flags are not expressing their love of America but quite the opposite, a specific political opinion which is in fact opposed to everything that America should stand for. They are fascists, and should be regarded as enemies who are at least as dangerous as any "free-lance" terrorist (I used the term "free-lance" to distinguish terrorism carried out by small groups like Al Qaeda from the more serious and ongoing threat posed by government-sponsored terrorism).
I have often implied that America needs a revolution: but given the capitulation of so many Americans to the Bush Administration's lies, that is not possible. What we need today is a second American Civil War. The people who signal their support for the Big Lie by displaying flags have a different definition of America than we do, or the Founders did. It is a fascist definition, which unscrupulously utilizes tragedies like 9/11 as the Nazis did the Reichstag Fire, to garner support for increasing governmental control over the lives of its citizens, undending warfare, murder and torture. They are the true enemies of America. In the film Judgement at Nuremberg, Judge Howe says as a Preface to his condemnation of four Nazi judges to life imprisonment, "A nation is not a rock. It is what it stands for. It is what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult." Those who, like Dan Rather and former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, who (even if belatedly!) challenge governmental lies are the real patriots. For it is a critical stance toward government, not unquestioning obedience to it, which is the "American Way".
When I walk down our streets, I wonder what has happened to the America I thought I knew when I was growing up, an America which I believed would never accept fascism even under duress. So many Americans are now embracing fascism voluntarily that I have felt estranged from my own country. But in truth, it is they who are estranged from this country, who are the traitors. They are the equivalent of the secessionist Southern planters, who thought that slavery was compatible with the American Way. Well it is not, nor is fascism, and we must let them know that by displaying the American flag as a symbol of their anti-libertarian beliefs, they have denigrated it. Glorifying unending warfare and the abuse of detainees, they have turned it into the "Star Wars and Prison Stripes". And that is far worse than burning it.
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