Media Bias Outrage of the Week - Bill Moyers Takes Back the Flag

fairpress.org ^ | 03/17/2003 | Peacerose

[Peacerose]

Bill Moyers Takes Back the Flag

03/17/2003
Following the tragedy of September 11, 2001, Americans took pride and comfort in displaying our flag. It was a symbol of our unified grief and our unified resolve. It symbolized our love of freedom - a love that binds together a diverse nation. How odd, then, that Bill Moyers feels the need now to 'take' the flag 'back'. Here are his words as he ended his February 28 show, Now, on PBS:

"I decided to put on my flag pin tonight. First time. Until now I haven't thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote, pay my taxes, perform my civic duties, speak my mind, and do my best to raise our kids to be good Americans…

"So what's this doing here? Well, I put it on to take it back. The flag's been hijacked and turned into a logo - the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism. On those Sunday morning talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if it is the good housekeeping seal of approval. And during the State of the Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No administration's patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies. And the flag bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's little Red Book on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread.

"But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American…

"I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what Bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not to the government…"

I fully agree with that last line! And doesn't it sound familiar? That's exactly what flag-wearing, flag-waving Americans said to those who found flag displays distasteful.

When dissenters said that waving an American flag is aggressive, jingoistic, and exclusionary, conservatives said, "It's your flag, too." When media personalities said that wearing a flag pin on the air would create an impression of approval of the Bush administration's policies, conservatives said, "It represents the whole country." When hand-wringers feared that flag displays would cause Americans to injure other Americans, conservatives said, "The flag unites us."

Here's what I want to know: Now that Moyers has 'rescued' the flag from moralistic ideologues, does he think that changes it's meaning? Or is it now in the hands of yet another moralistic ideologue? Does it not still belong to all of us?

And that jab about Mao's little Red Book! What a hoot! Moyers must be talking here to those who aren't aware that some of the organizations backing the "peace" rallies truly are, if not "un-American", genuinely communist. A few of their websites are listed below.

Please join me in letting Bill Moyers know what you think of his silly, one-sided rhetoric. Below is the contact information.

Now with Bill Moyers
WNET
450 West 33rd Street
6th Floor
New York, NY 10001

(212) 560-8600

Email: now@thirteen.org

Read more here:

MRC CyberALert, 03/03/2003: Moyers Wears Flag Pin to Protest Hijacking by Ideologues
Now with Bill Moyers web site
What is a Front? WWP & A.N.S.W.E.R

"Peace" web sites:
International A.N.S.W.E.R.
International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
IFCO/Pastors for Peace
International Action Center
Workers World Party
Workers World Party - about

[Fintan]

I've always found it helpful to realize that Moyers and his ilk believe this is the leader of "their" country...

 

 

 

 

[rimmont]

I remember election night in November 1980, Bill Moyers was working as a commentator for CBS's election coverage. As soon as it became obvious that Carter was going to lose to Reagan by the biggest landslide in U.S. history, he started becoming hysterical. All pretense of decorum was stripped away as he began ranting and giving all of the reasons that Reagan's election would be, in effect, the end of the world. This twit has always been a quasi-Marxist, at least now he has been given the marginal status in the media that he has always deserved.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

No offense to you but Bill Moyers isn't worth the time I justedwasted reading his words.

Now if we could just cut NPR and PBS from the government's tit I'd be a happier man.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Was Moyer's really working in the Johnson administration or are you just using him as an example of those liberal pieces of sh!+ Mcnamara and Johnson?

[ContentiousObjector]

And he is absolutly right,

"And the flag bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's little Red Book on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread."

[Wavyhill]

It certainly is telling that he never even touched the flag until it became useful as an anti-American prop.

[Wavyhill]

As if it would somehow be better off if they did read it. Instead of 30 million deaths, China might have been able to have 300 million!!! Imagine the possibilities.

[Wavyhill]

Yes, he was LBJ's press secretary. (Aside: that administration seems to have attracted worse people than any other, ever. Witness Ramsey Clark). Within a year after Nixon was elected, Moyers had done a 180 and was speaking at anti-American rallies sporting the Viet Cong flag.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

No administration's patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies.

I doubted The 'Toon's administration's patriotism. How could one not do so?

When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's little Red Book on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread.

How can one equate our flag with Mao's Little Red Book? One doesn't have to read the flag to understand it's meaning. All you have to do is feel what it means. I thought liberals were all about feelings over logic. The reason they don't embrace the flag is because they don't feel patriotic--they hate America. They are unAmerican.

[Cold Heat]

This guy is so freaking shameful that I cannot find the words that are strong enough and vicious enough to damn him.

Therefore, I will just let him do it himself. He is doing a fine job without me!

[Landru]

AAA meet CCRM; CCRM meet AAABest.

...now let's roll.

[AAABEST]

I went to the site after you gave me the URL last week.

It's so refreshing to see the right and freedom orientated groups getting off their asses for a change.

People are starting to activate, I'm loving it.

[Peacerose]

Hi, Landru!

Welcome, AAABest!

[albertp]

Speaking of Mao's Little Red Book, I have a copy of it! I also have a German language copy of Adolph Hitler's "Mein Kampf." Both soporific, brainwash-inducing. Mao: "Let a million flowers bloom, let a thousand schools of thought contend." Yet how many millions did Mao kill. And his Cultural Revolution which has been perfected in today's colleges and universities under the names "political correctness," "diversity," "multiculturalism." Even the preschools are being infected and infested with these liberal diseases of the soul and mind. And Adolph Hitler's sweet universal truth: "Our children are our most precious natural resource." It takes a village to raise an IDIOT, a robot of the state. Will these Clintonistas and Goretopians ever wake up? I wonder if Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore still want to DRUG American schoolchildren whom they consider to be "hyperactive, attention deficit, bipolar." Sorry for extending the discussion beyond the important flag issue. The true ideologue is obviously BILL MOYERS. Why do liberals imagine they represent the better instincts of better people everywhere??? Delusional thinking!

[E.G.C.]

Bump for CCRM!!!!!!

[Flyer]

Well, I put it on to take it back.

Got a flag?

Say the Pledge of Allegiance!

[SpinyNorman]

And be sure to say the "under God" part!!

[Peacerose]

I'm convinced that the "Little Red Book" reference is merely rhetoric meant to inflame the sheeple-types who have not bothered to find out who is really behind the anti-war movement: the pro-socialist, anti-Bush, anti-capitalist, anti-freedom cabal.

[FastCoyote]

Mao's little Red Book was self indulgent pap, I don't think anyone would hae been believes sporting a flag is self indulgent, but rather a call to support our troops.

[Peacerose]

Bumping