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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.