This is a pretty standard aversion to the flag. It made me think of Katha Pollitt's famous reaction to flag displays after the 9/11 attacks. Here: "Put Out No Flags" (The Nation, September 20, 2001):This is the full context of the comments of an important writer with the NYT Editorial Board, @MaraGay, that are well worth listening to given how pervasive these views have become rather quickly in elite media circles: https://t.co/IGDq5A5fMu
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 8, 2021
My daughter, who goes to Stuyvesant High School only blocks from the World Trade Center, thinks we should fly an American flag out our window. Definitely not, I say: The flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war. She tells me I’m wrong–the flag means standing together and honoring the dead and saying no to terrorism.... It seems impossible to explain to a 13-year-old, for whom the war in Vietnam might as well be the War of Jenkins’s Ear, the connection between waving the flag and bombing ordinary people half a world away back to the proverbial stone age. I tell her she can buy a flag with her own money and fly it out her bedroom window, because that’s hers, but the living room is off-limits.
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10 comments:
Washington Blogger writes: "Influential people on the left really do hate America and Americans. I don't think most middle-of-the-road people really realize just how deep-seated this contempt is. If they did, they might not be so ready to elect the apologists and sympathizers of that group of people even if they think the politician they are voting for is not one of the actual "crazy" ones. I hope the real awakening happens soon."
Lucien writes: "There’s that slippery use of the term “whiteness” again. In truth it’s a way of saying “I hate White people” with a dodge of “Oh no, I don’t hate White people, just whiteness”. But given recent exposition of Enlightenment values, individualism, equality under the law, rationality, fairness & objectivity, and fidelity to the Constitution as tokens of “whiteness”, then you’re damned right Whiteness is inextricably intertwined with American-ness."
madAsHell writes: "I do remember having an aversion to certain shapes, colors, sounds, and textures, but I grew out of it by age 5.
Why is this woman's emotional immaturity sucking down any network bandwidth?"
Chris writes: "Thanks for the Mara Gay video. Her comments included more than aversion to the American flag, although that’s present. I see in her a kind of xenophobia, a fear of foreigners, that is, a visceral fear of people whose views are foreign to her way of thinking. Along with that there is an uncritical acceptance that her perception is reality itself. It’s like she lives inside a bubble of fear, and no amount of reasoned discourse will change that. I certainly have my own bubble of fear. But in my better moments I realize that my perceptions may be wrong, and the other side may have things to teach me. It’s hard to judge fully on a two minute video, but I doubt that Mara Gay thinks this same way."
Joe writes:
""This is a pretty standard aversion to the flag.' It is if you're a liberal, idiot, race-hustler. Anyone who says the word 'insurrection' when referencing the riot and trespassing of January 6 is too dumb to either hire or reason with. Like talking to my spaniel."
Richard writes:
Ms. Gay should look in the mirror – amazing how her critique describes lefty-land so well.
In the days before the 2020 election, in downtown Brooklyn the businesses (even Catholic Charities!) were all boarded up, just in case the election came out the wrong way. No one was concerned about crazed Trump voters; the concern was the likely reaction by all those ‘mostly peaceful protesters’ who had been tossing Molotov cocktails at police cars in other parts of Brooklyn earlier in the year (two lawyers were indicted for it, but I’m sure Ms. Gay knows in her heart that they meant well). On the day after the election, the heavy-handed triumphalism from lefty-land was astonishing – never seen anything like it, parades of honking cars, lots of self-congratulatory crowds denouncing Trump and rejoicing that America Has Been Restored! Sharp contract to all the hand-wringing and wailing in 2016 when the voters delivered an obviously illegitimate result. No one around here was dumb enough to wear a MAGA hat, or give off a Trump-voter vibe – even before the election, no one was crazy enough to put up a sign or the like since they knew it would be greeted by a brick through the window (or worse), though Trump got about 20% if of the vote here.
When Ms. Gay talks about the threat to democracy, she can’t see what’s staring her in the face. Around metro NYC, contra Ms. Gay, it’s not the guy in a pick-up sporting an American flag. And she should be slow to complain about the rare pro-Trump bumper sticker – at least around here, which is the world Ms. Gay is talking about, Trump voters knew what the consequences would be if you put one on your car.
And that’s before you get to the out-and-proud racist stuff from lefty-land (including from Ms. Gay in her rant), going on about the evil of ‘whiteness.’
Just life in the NYT mono-culture, something that a non-lefty needn’t fear and will never experience, at least in metro NYC.
That Ms. Gay’s comments are unremarkable on 2021’s edition of Morning Joe reflects the political metamorphosis of its host, Joe Scarborough, formerly of Meridien, Mississippi, Elmira, New York, and Pensacola, Florida; a Republican elected to the House in the 1994 Republican wave from Florida’s First Congressional District—the tip of the Florida panhandle that chucks the chin of SE Alabama, and is known as the “Redneck Riviera.”
Ozymandias writes:
"Scarborough’s ascendancy as a fixture of DC’s permanent firmament follows the familiar pattern of centrist conservatives seduced by DC’s liberal-elite-of-no-particular-party, except perhaps Georgetown parties. The die was cast by the time of his marriage to his co-host, the daughter of Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, whose unimpeachable Beltway bloodstock washed away the last vestiges of Joe’s goober odor. The final stage was Joe and Mika diving headlong into the surf of Trump Derangement Syndrome and coming up “woke” enough to head-bob to Ms. Gay’s dizzy rubbish.
"He’s come a long way, baby!"
K writes: "How easy for her to talk about Trump voters. How hard for her to talk about DeBlasio voters. But, who is responsible for the black lives lost over Memorial Day weekend? How many black lives were lost in New York City over Memorial Day weekend to violent criminals the city power structure keeps releasing? and how many were lost on Staten Island to people in Ford F-150s with flags on the back? And how many black voters voted for the murderous power structure? And how many Trump supporters voted against it?"
Mark J writes:
"Any American when overseas and away from America for a significant time (months, not days) upon seeing an American flag feels a surge of patriotism. Even flag-haters like Gay. I know this from two stints out-of-country. Not a flag-hater myself but many of my compatriots were ... but I could detect the glistening eye when an American flag came into view.
"Deep down, even anti-American Americans are American."
Well said in the post, however, the cute little girl bought DESKTOP CUSTOM YOUNG GLORY
out of her own pocket and flew it out of her bedroom window because it belongs to her, but the living room is out of bounds.
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