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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 14, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, June 14, 2017 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Office Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager OUR VIEW OTHER VIEWS Is radicalism possible today? A flag worth celebrating AP Photo/Craig Ruttle Today is Flag Day, a celebration of the Stars and Stripes of our country. As an editorial board made up of amateur vexillologists (people who study the history, symbolism and usage of flags), we consider Flag Day a high holiday. It is not, to our dismay, yet a federal holiday — and a state holiday recognized only in New York and Pennsylvania. The annual celebration commemorates June 14, 1777, when a resolution was submitted in the Second Continental Congress that called for an official United States flag. That resolution called for the flag to be “thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.” And so it was born: The American Flag, one of the most recognizable symbols on planet Earth. Yet it wasn’t until much later, in the latter half of the next century, that American leaders led a charge to recognize the importance of the flag. Decades of grassroots efforts finally congealed and the first official Flag Day celebration was celebrated on June 14, 1877 — marking the American flag’s centennial. One cannot underestimate the symbolic power of the red, white and blue. Though the Supreme Court has ruled that burning and defiling the flag is protected speech, nothing enrages red-blooded Americans more than someone mistreating and treading upon it. It’s no wonder then that protesters or enemies of the United States know doing so is a great way to get the goat of many Americans. The flag is a powerful symbol that elicits powerful reactions. Yet as powerful and symbolic as the American flag is, Oregon’s flag is dreadfully poor. Any banner that includes the name of the place it represents is poor form, a lesson one learns in Vexillology 101. It’s ugly, too, with its blue and yellow and its myriad symbols too small to be properly understood. It’s only saving grace is the beaver found on the back (it’s the only flag in the U.S. with two distinct sides). It would be wonderful to make Oregon’s flag more inspiring and aesthetically pleasing — a symbol that inspires allegiance and pride. The wonderfully evocative and well-designed Cascadia flag does that, and it helps engender a sense of community where a community does not necessarily exist. Still, Flag Day is not about state flags. It’s about Old Glory, which has flown now for 240 years. It is about a wonderful work of national art that has inspired millions — both those supporting and criticizing the government and its people. Its legacy and symbolism are unmatched. Therefore it’s a day to consider how we display and treat the flag. A few notes from the U.S. Flag Code, the official (though non-binding) rule book: • The flag should not be displayed on a float in a parade except from a staff and should not be draped over the hood, top, sides, or back of a vehicle or of a railroad train or a boat. • The flag should never be used as clothing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up in folds, but always allowed to fall free. • The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever or embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. • The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning. If you notice the display of a U.S. flag that doesn’t fit these criteria, especially by a group or organization that is likely unaware of the standards, let them know. It is not a criminal offense, but can unintentionally turn patriotism into profanity. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of publisher Kathryn Brown, managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, and opinion page editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. A re you feeling radical? Do town. It was only when he met you think that the status quo the cosmopolitan stew of different is fundamentally broken and ethnicities in New York that he got we have to start thinking about radical the chance to “breathe a larger air.” change? If so, I’d like to go back a At a time of surging immigration, and century so that we might learn how fierce debate over it, Bourne celebrated radicalism is done. that “America is coming to be, not a The years around 1917 were a nationality but a trans-nationality, a weaving back and forth, with the other great period of radical ferment. Folks David at The New Republic magazine were Brooks lands, of many threads of all sizes and colors.” championing progressivism, which Comment Bourne believed in decentralized would transform how the economy is change — personal, spiritual, a regulated and how democracy works. revolution in consciousness. The “Beloved At The Masses, left-wing activists were fomenting a global socialist revolution. Outside Community” he imagined was a bottom-up, Whitmanesque “spiritual the White House radical welding,” a graceful coming suffragists were protesting for together of unlike ethnicities. the right to vote and creating The crucial decision point modern feminism. th came as the United States People in those days approached entry into World had one thing we have in War I. Lippmann supported abundance: an urge to rebel the war, believing that it against the current reality would demand more federal — in their case against the brutalities of industrialization, planning and therefore would the rigidities of Victorianism, accelerate social change. the stale formulas of academic Bourne was appalled by such thinking. instrumentalist thinking, But they also had a whole by the acceptance of war’s series of mechanisms they savagery. As McCarter puts it, thought they could use to “As Bourne has been arguing, implement change. If you were searching for a no choice that supports a war will realize any new consciousness, there was a neighborhood ideal worth the name.” to go to: Greenwich Village. If you were The radicals split between pragmatists searching for a dissident lifestyle, there was willing to work within the system and one — Bohemianism, with its artistic rejection visionaries who raised larger possibilities from of commercial life. outside. People had faith in small magazines as the Spreading their ideals, they pushed America best lever to change the culture and the world. forward. Living out their ideals, most were People had faith in the state, in central planning disillusioned. Reed lost faith in the Soviet as an effective tool to reorganize the economy Union. Lippmann lost faith in Wilson after and liberate the oppressed. Radicals had faith in Versailles. Bourne died marginalized and bitter the working class, to ally with the intellectuals during the flu epidemic of 1918. and form a common movement against Bourne was the least important radical a concentrated wealth. century ago, but with his fervent embrace of a There were many people then who had a decentralized, globalist, cosmopolitan world, genius for creating ideals, and for betting their he is the most relevant today. He is the best whole lives on an effort to live out these ideals. rebuttal to both Trumpian populism and the I’ve just been reading Jeremy McCarter’s multicultural separatist movements on the left, inspiring and entertaining new book “Young who believe in separate graduation ceremonies Radicals,” which is a group portrait of five of by race, or that the normal exchange of ideas those radicals: Walter Lippmann, Randolph among people represents cultural appropriation. Bourne, Max Eastman, Alice Paul and John Most of the 20th-century radicals were Reed. wrong to put their faith in a revolutionary All of them had a youthful and exuberant vanguard, a small group who could see faith that transformational change was farther and know better. Bourne was imminently possible. Reed was the romantic right to understand that the best change is adventurer — the one who left Harvard and dialogical, the gradual, grinding conversation, ventured to be at the center of wherever the pitting interest against interest, one group’s action might be — union strikes, the Russian imperfections against another’s, but bound by Revolution. Paul was the dogged one — the common nationhood and humanity. diminutive activist who gave up sleep, gave Are we really going to hand revolutionary up leisure, braved rancid prisons to serve the power to the state, the intellectuals, the social suffragist movement. scientists, the working class or any other class? But the two true geniuses were Lippmann No. This is not 1917. But can we recommit and Bourne, who offer lessons on different ourselves to the low but steady process of styles of radicalism. With his magisterial, politics, bartering and exchanging, which is organized mind, Lippmann threw his lot in incremental about means but radical about with social science, with rule by experts. He ends? That’s a safer bet. believed in centralizing and nationalizing, and ■ letting the best minds weigh the evidence and David Brooks became a New York Times run the country. He lived his creed, going from Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. He socialist journalism to the halls of Woodrow has been a senior editor at The Weekly Wilson’s administration. Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek Bourne was more visionary and vulnerable. and the Atlantic Monthly, and is currently a He’d grown up in a stiflingly dull WASP commentator on PBS. Most of the 20 century, radicals were wrong to put their faith in a revolutionary vanguard. OTHER VIEWS Both sides hesitant to revisit sage grouse protections The Baker City Herald W e have mixed feelings about Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s decision to require federal agencies to review two-year-old plans to protect sage grouse across the West, including in Baker County and other parts of Eastern Oregon. On the one hand, we don’t object to taking a fresh look at plans that affect a variety of activities on public land, including livestock grazing, a vital part of Baker County’s economy. It’s hardly implausible to believe that the conservation plans can be improved. But on the other hand, we wonder whether that possibility is worth upsetting the status quo. The current situation might not be ideal from the perspective of some ranchers. But we don’t believe any would dispute that the 2015 conservation plans, which were approved in lieu of the sage grouse being listed as a threatened or endangered species, were a preferable option. Our ambivalence reflects the reactions of two members of Oregon’s congressional delegation. Rep. Greg Walden, a Republican, applauded Zinke’s decision, saying the Interior Secretary “wants to involve and listen to local input.” But Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden contends Zinke is “ignoring the input of local stakeholders who spent years working to avoid a damaging Endangered Species Act listing.” Our chief concern is that the review could lead to changes in conservation plans that conservation groups and others who think sage grouse need federal protection can use to bolster their legal case. Which is to say that this decision could backfire, and make an ESA listing more likely rather than less. And in Baker County, where the sage grouse population has declined by about 73 percent over the past decade, that’s a frightening prospect indeed.
