Blue Collar Muse

Susan Crane, the University of Maine at Farmington student who conceived of a social conscience art project which involved putting American flags on the floor in a high traffic hallway of the University’s Student Center and seeing who walked on them and who avoided them, says it was hard to do and was difficult to see the flag on the floor of the Student Center being walked on. Perhaps that should have been a clue that the idea was a bad one. That little voice on the inside yelling, “Noooooooooooo!!” is called a conscience and the more you ignore it the easier it is to ignore it the next time. Sort of like Jiminy Cricket and Pinnochio.

I wish I could say that I was surprised at the behavior of the University officials who permitted the project. I’m not. Remember we’re talking about a University here. Nothing is forbidden except decency, morality and learning. I wish I could say I was surprised at the behavior of the despicable individuals who thought nothing of walking on the flag, or worse, chose to cavalierly stand on the flag chatting with their friends. There will always be a certain segment of the populace that is simply disrespectful of any values or views other than their own. They freely insult, degrade and deride the beliefs of others but whine like a spanked puppy if they are subject to their own medicine.

I was not surprised by the response of men and women of conviction who responded to the outrage of what was done by outing the University, it’s hand wringing, impotent administration and the student. Lance Duston, Stop The ACLU, Grizzly Groundswell, ARRA New Service, Gateway Pundit, Stix Blog, BlackFive, Castle Arrgh, Op-For, Leslie Carbone, Maggie Thurber and Fort Hard Knox among others have written about this story and it’s crossing over to Fox News and other national media as we speak.

What I found surprising came from Susan Crane herself and her defenders. I was stunned to find it echoed in comments on a number of posts and articles on the story. Susan Crane says of herself in defense of her actions, “I’m a Republican!” and all the lemmings parrot “What she did was not illegal!” I have to respond, “Of what possible relevance is any of this to the charge of desecrating the flag?”

Susan Crane is a Republican? So were the members of the College Republicans who oppose her actions. So which position is the Republican position. It is precisely this sort of muddying of the waters on the Right side of the political spectrum that has given us John McCain as the GOP nominee. Vote for amnesty? Vote against tax cuts? Vote to gut the first amendment? Vote to throw a Republican President’s judicial nominees under the bus? Need I go on? But John McCain is a by-God Republican. Lookee there, after his name - right there there’s an ‘R’! I toldja!! And that makes it all OK. It doesn’t matter what you say. It doesn’t matter what you do. It doesn’t matter how you vote. It doesn’t matter what issues you support or oppose. Are you a Republican? Then you’ll do. What future is in store for the GOP if they cannot even get their basic branding down? Not to worry, though. The entire country is just as screwed up. We have no idea what it means to be an American anymore so what’s the big deal with a little confusion over your party’s values?

What she did is not illegal. Who said that it is? I cannot find a single person who opposes her actions that is saying it is a crime. I can find plenty who think it ought to be! But none who say it is. I’m bothered, however, by the argument that because something is legal it is, therefore, also moral. Because we know that is not true. It was legal for the Nazis to do what the did. It was legal for Bill Clinton to sleep around on Hillary with interns. It is legal to murder children in the womb. But is any of this legal activity right? Is it moral? Obviously not. All the blathering about legality is nothing more than a sophisticated version of a child with his fingers in his ears yelling, “La! La! La! I’m not listening!” to his parents. It says only, “I don’t have to listen to your arguments on right and wrong! Don’t talk to me about morality! Legality is on my side!”

Finally, it’s interesting to me that almost none of the defense of the student centers on her scintillating, artistic creation. Because that does not exist. The display was not art. It doesn’t even rise to the level of bad art. It was a provocation waiting to happen. Art should inspire, not provoke. The student seems to have been relatively forthright in saying things like “I wanted to see who would walk on the flag and who wouldn’t!” And that is an artistic vision, how? If she had said, I think the United States flag is represents the worst of what it means to be human!” and put the flags down to show her contempt for it, I might actually accept that as an artistic statement. Then when she finds the vast majority of her peers disagree with her she can assess the impact her art has on the proletariat. But to put down flags so people had to make the choice to walk or not to walk on them and to do so against her better judgment and in violation of her own values for the stated purpose of seeing whether or not someone would walk on them fails the art test. Artists don’t create and wait to see. They emote, they pour out, they convey what is really on the inside of them. Sometimes what is inside isn’t pretty. And they have a vested interest in the public’s reaction because they have bared their souls and they hope to find agreement, support, understanding and approval. No doubt the UMF student would like to have all those things, too. And had she created a piece of art, we might be able to find a way to get there with her. But all she did was a class project which revealed more about the people around her than it did about her.

It’s sad really. Her professor will tell her what a brave woman she is and the school’s administration will spin this as a positive reason to attend their sorry institution. What’s most likely to happen is that the student will feel she was somehow a victim in all of this. She’ll wonder what the problem was and why no one understands. The commotion will blow over and be forgotten by all but a few. But the nation will have become just a little bit coarser. Our commitment to our values and symbols just a little weaker. Slowly and incrementally we will fail to defend ourselves from the enemy within and one day we will be unable to defend ourselves against the enemy without. It is foolish to assume it will be any other way. History has shown it to be so over and over. But they don’t teach History in school these days anymore, either …

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I’m not sure where I was but I must have been doing something VERY important. Otherwise I’m pretty sure I would remember where I was when higher education became synonymous with ignorance. Kind of like remembering where you were when we landed on the moon; when Challenger blew up and when Kennedy, Kennedy, King, Lennon, Reagan and the Pope were shot.

You may be tempted to disagree with me and contend that higher education is not, in fact, an exercise in ignorance. So let me state, for the record, that I wish it were not so. Unfortunately, I have proof that it is. Well, proof that in the minds of some folks in Maine it is. I suppose I could back off a bit since not everyone in the story agrees with what was done. That’s likely the question you’re asking yourself, at the moment, isn’t it? What in the world set Ken off this time?

Here’s the skinny. The University of Maine at Farmington approved a recent ‘art’ project for one of their students. This particular project involved laying American flags, large and small, on the floor of a high traffic hall in the University’s Student Center. The idea was that the flags were there for people to walk on if they so chose. Thankfully, this ‘art’ didn’t insist that people do so and the flags were arranged in such a way that foot traffic could snake around the flags and traverse the hall without stepping on Old Glory.

Most of the young people who walked the hall that day had the good sense, morals and respect for the flag to take the difficult, meandering route. Unfortunately not everyone has a pedigree that includes respect and decency. There were students that walked across the flags and an ignorant few who actually took up positions intentionally standing on the flag. This included one empty headed, ignoramus dressed for the ‘hood (in Maine??) and proudly wearing a sign on his back proclaiming him to be a “Future Teacher”. Yet another reason The Much Younger Trophy Wife and I homeschool our children.

But even these naifs were not the most memorable members from the cast of characters parading across a six and a half minute video of the “art” show. The most memorable were a group of four, two good and two bad. The two bad, unsurprisingly, are University employees. And not just any two employees, oh no! They were the University’s President, Theodora Kalikow and the University’s Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Allen Berger. For the record, both of these individuals have completed a PhD program and appear on the University’s website with the honorific Dr. before their names. I will not so honor them here. I trust they will approve of my exercise of my Freedom of Speech.

The two University employees explain to one of the good guys, a veteran upset about the “art”, that the student’s project was approved by the University (so much for the “We didn’t know” defense later), was covered under the student’s right to free speech and that he can’t remove the flags from the floor. A third woman actually has the hubris to tell him they are protecting his Freedom of Speech by permitting the “art”. The veteran is further advised that his standing in front of the “art” with a home made sign reading “DISGRACEFUL” will not be permitted and that if he persists in doing so he will be escorted off the grounds, although they later agree to let him stay. There is, however, a police officer right next to the vet who enthusiastically agrees to remove him if necessary should the vet seek to defend his beloved flag from desecration. One of the employees further engages the veteran in a debate in which he tells him the flag is just “a piece of cloth” and implies his fight under the flag as a symbol of freedom was ignorant since Viet Nam was about far more than symbols. Truly these two employees are classic examples of those whose mind is so open their brains have leaked out.

The good guys in the video are a vet and another student at the University. Of all the folks in the video, I was most impressed with the veteran. Perhaps it was his time in the service that allowed him to cut through all of the verbal and intellectual posturing and misdirection and keep his eye on the enemy. He was at all times respectful and never once raised his voice but he knew what his mission was and he would not be dissuaded. Some of my favorite moments were when the employees began spouting some gobbledy-gook and the vet’s eyes would glaze over a bit and he simply and obviously tuned them out. He held his sign and stood in front of the flag to prevent anyone from walking on it without first knocking him down and simply stared straight ahead, calm and impassive. What a beautiful testament to patriotism in the face of cultural lunacy.

The second good guy was another student who walked up to the vet as he stood his post, shook the vet’s hand, crossed his arms in front of him and then stood alongside him as he kept up his vigil. Both of the good guys are unnamed in the video, but if I get to Maine, I have two folks on my “I believe I owe you a beer!” list. Thank you, gentlemen, for your service to our country!

Thanks, too, to the folks behind the camera! It’s my understanding that the College Republican group for UMF provided the video. It is difficult to imagine what it must be like to be an American and a Republican in such an environment. Those who openly proclaim themselves to be both get a shout out from Tennessee! And thanks to the nameless students as well who kept the faith by keeping their feet where they belong in a situation like this; on the straight and narrow and not on the Stars and Stripes! It’s these students we should consider as the norm as opposed to ignorant and disrespectful children and the educators who enable them. I suspect there are far more of the good kids than there are the bad ones. Even at the University of Maine …

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