I've been captivated by Ken Burns' The War this week and it struck me how awesome America used to be.
The prevailing attitude of the ladies and gentlemen featured in Burns' film, and by proxy all Americans of that era, was that if we had to fight a war, we had better do it right. Clearly and with little dissent, we had to fight that war, and without fail, Americans rallied together to do it really damn well.
People from every corner of the nation selflessly pooled their resources for the great cause of World War II, and I'm not sure about this one, but I don't think President Roosevelt ever once asked the country to sacrifice by going to the mall. And I'm pretty sure he didn't outsource the construction of tanks, Flying Fortresses, Hellcats and Thunderbolts to Mexico and China. That's a hell of a thing by today's standards, isn't it?
We've fallen so far from what we used to be, even as recently as thirty years ago when the comparatively liberal president Richard Nixon opened a dialogue with Red China, whilst Mao supplied arms to North Vietnam. One day long ago, it was okay to wish for an end to a war, without being accused of hating the soldiers who were fighting it. It was once a given that socialized public education, police, fire departments, roads, parks, national defense and the constitutionally mandated General Welfare & Domestic Tranquility were simply a part of the American way of life and would always be there.
And when our nation had to go to war, we would be there for her.
Conversely, when we crumble to the pressure of our reactionary and authoritarian elements, we get Japanese internment camps, the rise of the military industrial complex, and men turned away from service due to the color of their skin. Some of our greatest failures have been conceived when our irrationality, fear and lust for power overrule our traditional American ideals -- even during our finest hours as a nation.
And now, 50 years later, in our lives and times, we get President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney.
The Bush Years have been a monumental, cataclysmic failure on most fronts due to its inattention to what has, historically, made American great. The president and his thinning ranks of fawn-eyed Hannities don't understand this yet. They don't understand it mostly because they're too ignorant -- blinded by sloganeering -- to the very basic reality that Bush Republican style government, in practice, is about as successful and practical as a paper condom. It always has been.
Nowhere is this more apparent than when they compare the Bush Wars to World War II. It's a desperate notion, one that seeks to conflate our current president with greatness he doesn't deserve and an historical legacy he will never achieve. It's also meant to inflate our current "enemies" to Hitler status, and thus proving the case for war.
The comparison is pure horseshit. (Say nothing of the fact that it elevates Bin Laden or the late Saddam or the present Ahmadinejad to a level of villainy they also don't deserve. It's like saying a doofus villain like Solomon Grundy is the next Lex Luthor. I'm sure they appreciate being granted superpowers enough to take over the world, though.)
If it's so fucking important to stay in Iraq, and if it's so fucking important to invade Iran -- and if it's so fucking important to wiretap your phones and read your mail, and to shit all over your constitutional rights and the Geneva Conventions -- and all of it is part of a larger World War II style conflict, then why aren't the Bushies taking their metaphors seriously by demanding the sacrifices of World War II?
Did President Roosevelt cut taxes or ask veterans to pay higher deductibles? Did President Roosevelt outsource the army by hiring no-bid corporate mercenaries?
From the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the surrender of Japan, automobile manufacturers stopped making cars in lieu of manufacturing hardware for the war effort. Can you imagine, among all of the scrap metal drives -- the rationing of everything from gasoline to frying pan fat -- if Roosevelt had allowed SUV drivers to receive tax breaks in which sheer vehicular tonnage was rewarded at the peril of even one American G.I.?
If the quintessential symbol of the American character in World War II was Rosie The Riveter, the poster for the Bush Wars has to be that of an SUV driver receiving a tax break while sucking down enough Saudi oil to drive to a mall where he's expected to buy lead-tainted crapola manufactured overseas -- a yellow ribbon hypocrite magnet dangling just above his exhaust pipe and several inches from a fading W04 sticker. The caption: "The Bush Patriot Says: 'I'm On It, Mr. President!'"
The Bushies can't possibly take their own World War II metaphor seriously because they don't truly believe in the comparison.
They know, as you and I do, that these wars have little to do with stopping a new Hitler. If we peel back the layers -- if you look at what truly drives little childish men like Hannity and Cheney and Kristol, you'll find that it has little to do with liberating nations from an occupying Nazi force and ending a brutal holocaust. Beneath the pasty white surface of a typical Bush Republican you'll find greed, fear, ignorance, anger and a basic lack of understanding of America's place on the world stage. They're traits that drive nations into unnecessary wars. They're also traits that often breed cowardice.
To wit... Those of you demanding a war in Iran, I have one question for you. And no, I'm not going to employ the tired military service argument, but I must ask you this: what is the very minimum you're doing right now to prepare for your war? Are you refusing to support further tax cuts or pumping less "Islamofascist" oil into your SUV tank?
You're probably not doing anything because all you're expected to do is to say that you support the troops (what does that mean in practice?). And as long as you don't oppose the president as he dismantles the Constitution in favor of a corporate police state, then you've contributed to your president's war effort. That's the Bush Republican way. Oh, and to shop. You have go to Disneyland and buy shit you don't need at the mall (what the fuck is a Webkinz?).
How will the Ken Burns of the future portray the Bush Wars? I imagine that a large part of a future documentary about these times will detail what Rick Perlstein sublimely referred to this week as the destruction of America's character.
Whoever the future Ken Burns might be (hopefully, it'll be Ken Burns), he or she will have to dig deep into the destruction of our national character and detail the stories of torture and secret detention facilities; outsourced corporate thugs murdering foreign civilians; government scare tactics without substance -- it'll be a documentary in part about your non-military friends and family who supported this president's war but who sacrificed nothing in its execution.
So here we are in late 2007. The president believes that history will vindicate his efforts to destroy the American character and to bring about the ascendancy of neo-conservatism. After all, he fancies himself the new McKinley -- or is it George Washington? Is he Lincoln this week or Truman? Is he still fighting the Vietnam War or is it World War II? Korea or the Civil War? Goddamn him and his marble-mouthed horseshit. That's exactly why it has to be up to you and me to write the history -- the truth -- now. It won't be a proud endeavor because there has been little to be proud of, but we have to make sure that future Americans know exactly what happened in the Bush Years and in the Bush Wars.
The pendulum keeps swinging further to the right and seldom in our generation has it swung all the way back. When a president can look you in the eye and say he's going to veto healthcare for children, and his people are fine with that; and when the same sales pitch for Iraq is being employed for Iran -- and it's working, what else can you say about that fucking pendulum?
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Support the Veterans History Project here.
It still is. Just ask any of the 15,000,000 illegal aliens.
You can scream at a religious cult following all you want. If you really want them to listen, you have to begin the process of deprogramming.
While I don't hold out hope for some Americans, others are starting to wake up. While there is plenty of blame to go around, it's important to remember one thing: 9/11 all the way to the failed response to Katrina happened while Bush was President. Everything he touches turns to stone.
This is why some cult followers have begun to question their own beliefs.
Excellent blog.
Why would any president sign a bill into law that would unduly cover children from well to do families? This is welfare for the undeserving, and your side is suppose be against that.
"Nowhere is this more apparent than when they compare the Bush Wars to World War II. It's a desperate notion, one that seeks to conflate our current president with greatness he doesn't deserve and an historical legacy he will never achieve. It's also meant to inflate our current "enemies" to Hitler status, and thus proving the case for war."
Oh for the good old days of World War I and II when millions died and we were fighting real villians like the Kaiser, Hitler and Tojo. If only we can figure out how to turn the War on Terror into a real honest to goodness world war; into a world wide military struggle against all Islam and justify Podhoretz's belief that we are in World War IV.
Hell, I'll take Bush's little "horseshit" wars as you call them over the real awesome thing anytime. Stop your childish whinning Bob and be grateful for our incredible shrinking stinking little wars; let us hope over time they even grow smaller until war ends all together and mankind finds the humanity and love to live in peace.
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Are there just 650,000 dead Iraqis or are we up to a million yet? When it's your mother, brother, sister, father, son, cousin, friend, neighbor who was killed or maimed, and it's all based on lies and arrogance and massive injustice and corruption -- I don't think you're gonna call it an incredible shrinking anything. I don't think pain and anger shrink. I think they fester and grow. And when we can't even REMEMBER what it's like to have "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind" -- Declaration of Independence -- I'd say the wound is huge. We kill first, we talk last, we fear everybody, we respect nobody. We have sacrificed our Constitution and we are nothing now. We are shot in the head, shot in the heart, shot in the foot.
My parents served in World War II. They hate Bush.
Let’s see how World War II and Iraq compare:
Save us from an evil person? Check.
Make the world safe for capitalism, oops I mean democracy? Check.
Stifle dissent? Check.
Conceive of a noble, altruistic, humanitarian plan (Marshall, Iraqi Oil) that would turn into another global market? Check.
Become an imperialist world power bent on controlling markets and resources? Check.
How will Ken Burns portray Iraq? The same way he presents WWII – as a great war with a noble cause. Look how he has even you believing it. As for any alternative view, it will be duly censored, kept off the airwaves and who knows, maybe even the filmmaker jailed for making terrorist movies. It’s been known to happen, you know. Which reminds me of an old joke going around Poland under Communism: Two prisoners in the Soviet gulag are working and talking.
“So what did you get?”
“25 years.”
“Wow! What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s impossible. For doing nothing you only get 10.”
The most fucking important thing, Bob, is not that little list you made; it is to KNOW YOUR HISTORY! You might start with Howard Zinn’s analysis of World War II in the People’s History of the United States. Don’t let our hatred of the Bush administration and our desperation and helplessness force us into putting wars into categories of good and evil. THERE ARE NO GOOD WARS, except the wars against social and economic justice.
Shame on all who doubt George W. Bush and shame on this hate filled site!
Shame on YOU for insinuating that dissent is somehow wrong.
Shame on YOU for confusing dissent with hatred.
but evidence is not supportive. We have to go back to WHY we invaded Iraq...and the lame, yet sucessful excuse of 9/11...the blinders that went up that Saddam with all his brutality, had NO part in the attack on American soil.
To draw an analogy...it would be like FDR authorizing the invasion of say..INDIA..for the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
W would have been smart to ask American's to sacrifice instead of shop...but..W's not so smart...and a pawn of Cheney and his dangerous ilk.
Lincoln had many detractors during his presidency..but he was trying to hold a nation together (with the side of ending slavery as an important second). FDR certainly had his faults (the imprisonment of Japanese Americans will always be a blight on his tenure).
And Apollo (earlier post)..says he'll take W's little horseshit war... What will you say Apollo when Cheney reigns supreme if/when we attack Iran?
It certainly won't be with troops..we don't have enough to spare... That mushroom cloud that scared everyone during the cold war has grown very strong legs... So much for a little "bullshit" war.
Oh..just an afterthought...please tell the mother of a soldier who died about your "little" war.
Get back to me with her response..will ya?
No dear,
The Neo Coureurs elevated bin Laden to the status of International BOOGIE MAN.
You speak about a FEAR driven mentalities in WWII, the most fearful of all were the Germans themselves.
Principles of LIFE, LIBERTY, JUSTICE, EQUALITY abandoned for a coordinated campaign of FEAR.
FEAR and demonizing Intellectuals.
FEAR of free speech and repression of differing points of view.
FEAR and the generating of mass hysterias using slogans and sound-bites.
FEAR and repressions of the National Debate.
FEAR of the *OTHER* focusing all attention and blame OUTWARD.
FEAR and the fostering and exploiting divisions of faith.
FEAR of homosexuals and blaming them for the beaks down of morals.
FEAR of immigrations, race and all others, except the chosen and PURE.
FEAR of different religions and all but a narrow, radical and extremist view that rationalizes exploitations of resources and human slavery.
FEAR of anyone who would oppose the Imperious Leader and question his position as a GOD among men.
FEAR of anyone that would question the Ideological mandate or wisdom of extreme Nationalism and Militarism.
FEAR of all science unless employed for WAR.
FEAR of diversity, pluralism, cultural and social INCLUSION and integration.
FEAR discussion, conversation, debate in favor of shouted and screams of hallow rhetoric, slogans, propaganda, (For the Pagans) News-Speak, DOGMA, misinformation, condemnation and repudiation.
The strategy?
Force the abandonment of all PRINCIPLES of and respect for HUMAN LIFE.
DIVIDE and conquer!
CRUSH and KILL any one who disagrees.
And take your people to WAR!
Hitler did not rule Germany,,,, FEAR DID!
All the best
Knute (Neo-LIB)
We need another constitutional convention to reshape the power triangle of our government. The old checks and balances are just that, OLD. The president has far to much war time power.
We need to regain control of America before it is lost to the same factors that ended the Roman era!
I love America and am concerned enough to call for immediate political action. Contact your Senators and Congress-people to make your voice heard.
THIS is the main problem with Americans!
Especially chilling: "When a president can look you in the eye and say he's going to veto healthcare for children, and his people are fine with that." They are without souls.
I have been tempted to take my young son and live elsewhere because I worry about his future in America. It is not the country I knew as a child, and for my parents who lived through WWII, Americans sacrificing and pulling together for love of country, they are completely at a loss now at what America has become. I don't know where I may end up, but while I'm still here, I will do what I can to help, not destroy, to speak compassionately, not with hatred, to be an activist for my fellow countrymen and women, to give, and give some more, even if it means I must go without something, because every word I speak and every action (or inaction) I take is a reflection of my self.
Thank you, Bob, as always for speaking plainly and expressing the moral outrage many of us carry, whether we're attuned to it or not (some may still be in an apathetic slumber -- please wake up!), because in truth, we of voting age are all responsible.
I'm glad you brought attention to the Veteran's History Project at the end. It's interesting to note the following:
"How did the Veterans History Project start?
The United States Congress created the Veterans History Project in 2000. The authorizing legislation (Public Law 106-380), sponsored by Representatives Ron Kind, Amo Houghton, and Steny Hoyer in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senators Max Cleland and Chuck Hagel in the U.S. Senate, received unanimous support and was signed into law by President William Jefferson Clinton on October 27, 2000."
Note the names involved -- some are STILL fighting to set right this country and regain our moral balance.
It is our legitimacy as a nation.'
General Wesley Clark
http://securingamerica.com/node/2425