Its our brand new DEAD AIR holiday bumper-sticker-deciphering contest! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?-- please offer your 2 cents.
I haven't thought of any cool prizes yet, but working on it.
I took this photo about two miles from here in a public parking lot in a nice suburb. Not in the backwoods or anything. But of course, this is still the South.
~*~
I understand the basic assertion of the bumper sticker: The Confederacy would never have "left" the POWs and MIAs in Vietnam. (And that's some deliberately-inflammatory rhetoric right there, that they were somehow "left" deliberately. By whom?)
1) Does this mean the Confederacy would have had a Vietnam war too, in some alternative universe that never happened?
2) Does this include the African-American soldiers, too? (Can they be forgiven for thinking that your word ain't much, on this particular score?)
Any other questions, please ask in comments. Play along at home!
~*~
PS: This also gets put in my "You Yankees don't know how easy you've got it!" file.
The result of this announcement was demonstrations on many American college campuses over the next few days. Nixon had promised to end the war, and proved to be a liar. The anger of the youth who would fight this war was palpable. At Kent State University in Ohio, demonstrators burned down an ROTC building. It was never known if this was deliberate or just an act of vandalism that got out of hand. Ostensibly due to this event, Governor James Rhodes declared Martial Law on the campus of Kent State University and sent the National Guard onto the campus. He also held a press conference in which he made famous inflammatory statements: "They're worse than the brownshirts and the communist element and also the night-riders and the vigilantes," Rhodes said. "They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America."
On May 4th, a demonstration was scheduled for noon. There were about 2000 people gathered for the demonstration, and about 1000 troops on campus. For unknown reasons, the Guard decided to break up the demonstration, and ordered the crowd to disperse. They were met with rocks and flying debris. The Guard responded with tear gas, and it was on.
I have read multiple versions of what happened next. Several facts dominate these versions: the kids were returning the tear gas cannisters (which do POP loudly like guns when they go off) and the Guard seemed very confused and didn't know what to do. At one point, none seemed sure of which direction to advance, but advance they did. At 12:22 PM, after guardsmen had advanced to the top of the hill near Taylor Hall and the parking lot, they turned and fired. They commenced firing for 13 seconds and fired 67 M-1 semiautomatic bullets. They wounded nine students, and murdered four in cold blood. Only two of these four students, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, were actually demonstrating against the war. The remaining two, Sandra Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder, were merely changing classes.
No one knows who gave the order to fire, if anyone did.
The kids in the National Guard were the same ages as the kids on the campus. These kids were all facing the same reality--the males of both groups were trying to avoid going to war. One group could afford college and the other could not, but could somehow get into the Guard. There is no question there was significant class hostility directed at the college kids by the Guard; the males in the Guard were closer to actual combat in Vietnam, although William Schroeder attended Kent on a ROTC scholarship and may well have intended to become an Officer himself.
From this incident, we learned that even the pampered children of the middle class were expendable. We learned that totalitarianism can erupt quickly and suddenly, particularly in small, contained areas where there exists considerable class hostility, panic, and loaded weapons. We learned that the Governor of Ohio was a fascist and a murderer, as was the President and his henchmen, all of whom nodded approvingly at the murders at Kent.
The lines were drawn very clearly, especially for me. I woke that morning in Ohio, to see that my state was all over the national news, all over the newspapers. We had various Moments of Silence for the next week. Everyone seemed to know someone involved. My grandmother cried and explained to me that these students were exercising their civil rights, and had been shot for it. "You have to remember this," she told me.
In the subsequent lawsuits, the families received an average of approximately $63,000 per student.
If you have ever watched "The Amazing Race" TV show on CBS network, you know the protocol. A diverse collection of two-person teams race around the world at breakneck pace, stopping at various tourist traps, landmarks and special events. At these colorful pit stops, they are usually required to participate in various contests and exercises: scaling mountains and walls and ladders into the stratosphere; dancing some intricate local tribal dances or engaging in some arcane ceremony; answering questions and quizzes about the history of wherever they are, and so forth. After they perform some telegenic activity (whilst inevitably arguing with each other about who is going to do it, who is right, etc)... they pick up the sacred clue to the next location, and off they go. The last pair to arrive at each locale is eliminated, until finally, there is one pair left, who are thereby proclaimed the winners.
Needless to say, it probably isn't easy to find distinctive, cool places to send the contestants. There is a bit of a travelogue on each show, as narrators quickly explain local history and customs, and provide interesting details, such as how many feet into the air they will have to climb, or how far away they are from such-and-such or so-and-so. It all tends to run together, so the challenge is to make each new location stand out and become uniquely interesting to the viewer.
Sometimes a locale is obviously chosen strictly for its emotional or political value, to stop viewers from getting bored and picking up that deadly remote. Or to get some drama going from the contestants' reactions to such a place.
On the March 17th show, it was Hanoi. HANOI.
H.A.N.O.I.
I was somewhat dumbfounded.
As soon as I saw the smashed-up B-52, I thought, oh shit. I saw that coming like a freight train.
And then I instantly wondered... who is working for CBS? Who is working for "The Amazing Race"? Do they not associate with regular people out here in the American heartland? Do they understand the emotional reaction to a downed American B-52 from The Vietnam War? Good Lord.
Well, John McCain did, and a bunch of other veterans did, too. The shit hit the fan in short order.
Usually, it is "Amazing Race" contestants with loose lips that stir up controversy for being insensitive, offensive, or ugly Americans while dashing around the less scenic or underprivileged countries of the world on the competition reality show. But with last week's Vietnam-based episode, it was the producers and network that found themselves on the receiving end of public backlash.
Veterans, conservative newscasters, politicians like Arizona Sen. John McCain, and plenty of the show's fans were upset that the show filmed at the site of a crashed U.S. B-52 bomber, and featured a segment where players had to listen to a pro-communist anthem being sung in front of a portrait of Ho Chi Minh and then find one of the song's lyrics in a sea of propaganda posters. Vietnam War veteran and American Legion National Commander James E. Koutz sent a letter to CBS Thursday, asking that the network apologize for "its disgraceful slap-in-the face administered to American war heroes. We only wish that the network would not be so eager to broadcast anti-American propaganda."
Senator John McCain is among those who have accepted CBS’ apology for a passage on The Amazing Race where contestants visited the wreckage of an American B-52 bomber in Vietnam, writing on Twitter that the “issue is closed.”
The national commander of the American Legion, James Koutz, has also accepted the apology. Commander Koutz said said he believed it was sincere and heartfelt.
The segment aired March 17 and angered many veterans, particularly those who served in the Vietnam War. As part of its scavenger hunt game, contestants on the show had to visit the site in Hanoi, which Vietnamese authorities turned into a memorial.
Before this Sunday’s edition of The Amazing Race, host Phil Keoghan read a statement apologizing to veterans and families who may have been offended.
For my part, I continue to be amazed at the mainstream media's general cluelessness about such matters. I could have easily predicted this reaction, as everyone I know could too.
As I asked, above: WHO works for these people? Didn't anybody on the show's staff speak up and say, "Hey, ya think maybe this isn't such a good idea?"
I first started reading blogs in 1998, when the USA was still at relative 'peace'--in terms of war and military interventions. In the past decade, I have witnessed the increase and escalation of military activity in several countries... and with this escalation, an astronomical increase in online trolls and fakes, claiming all sorts of bogus military experience.
Yes, you read that right. Fakes.
On this Veterans Day, I am hereby calling out the fakes.
A real military veteran is usually not afraid to name themselves, or at the very least, share a significant part of themselves online: their photograph, their blog, their location, their Twitter or Facebook profile. Like all real people, pseudonymous or not, their experience rings true, because it comes from the heart. They don't always make themselves look good, or certain, or without ambivalence. Like the rest of us, pseudonymous or not, real veterans have a social-media presence that is believable and consistent. People know them, and there is genuine proof of their ongoing interaction in the world, including their military service.
By contrast, the fakes are anonymous troublemakers and the tellers of tall tales. They often claim to be signature bad-asses, such as Marines or Navy Seals (as the Vietnam Era fakes could not refrain from claiming to be Airborne Rangers or Green Berets). They always claim the violent, romanticized, movie-magic aspect of war; the fakes never claim kitchen duty or the boring grunt work of checking in thousands of uniforms. They claim to have seen lots and lots of carnage. They tell stories of car-bombs and how they breezed through such events, unblinking. They brag about drinking coffee next to piles of corpses, unfazed.
And this is how we know they are fakes. Nobody drinks coffee next to piles of corpses, unfazed, unless they are monsters. I simply refuse to believe our veterans are monsters.
For this reason, the fakes are a blight.
The posturing phonies who brag about their fictional service are doing actual harm to genuine veterans, making up bullshit-bad-ass stories, thereby claiming sympathy, expertise and respect that simply does not belong to them. The arrogance and superiority that is frequently obvious in their online personas (undoubtedly reflecting feelings of inferiority and unimportance in real life) creates antipathy in people who would otherwise feel great empathy for veterans. The fictional crap they constantly spew forth (and I have caught them in countless contradictions and lies) aggravates existing negative feelings that many of us have about war; it doesn't do the military any favors.
The stories of well-known Vietnam-era fakes (or 'partial fakes'--such as historian Joseph Ellis and recent congressional candidate Kenneth Aden) have been part of our culture for a very long time... and due to the endless war of the past decade, we can now expect to see a whole new crop of them. The problems with these fakes will be never-ending. There is already enough trouble tracking down the frauds who dare to name themselves and claim jobs they do not deserve.
The online versions are fast-becoming the same sort of plague--and there seems to be little we can do to expose them.
My advice to one and all, is, do not readily assume someone (especially an anonymous online person repeatedly blowing his/her own horn) is automatically telling the truth about military service. The internet has made it exponentially easier to research the specificities of war, as well as the in-depth details of various actions and incursions (and their casualties). There are more photos, facts and figures online than ever before in history. Any of us, gifted enough in story-telling and accompanying ego-driven motives, could likely pull this off with enough effort. Americans typically want to honor and believe the best of veterans, and are unlikely to call someone a fake, unless that evidence is literally staring them in the face.
But in the case of anonymous commenters and people hanging out on blogs, be skeptical. Just as anyone can claim to be a model or cheerleader or actor or math-genius, anyone can claim to be a veteran. When that person decides to show their ass or treat people in a deliberately unkind, nasty fashion, they tarnish the reputation of ALL veterans, while using their supposed (nonexistent) military service as an excuse to be a first-class asshole.
They don't deserve your indulgence, they deserve to be exposed.
The result of this announcement was demonstrations on many American college campuses over the next few days. Nixon had promised to end the war, and proved to be a liar. The anger of the youth who would fight this war was palpable. At Kent State University in Ohio, demonstrators burned down an ROTC building. It was never known if this was deliberate or just an act of vandalism that got out of hand. Ostensibly due to this event, Governor James Rhodes declared Martial Law on the campus of Kent State University and sent the National Guard onto the campus. He also held a press conference in which he made famous inflammatory statements: "They're worse than the brownshirts and the communist element and also the night-riders and the vigilantes," Rhodes said. "They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America."
On May 4th, a demonstration was scheduled for noon. There were about 2000 people gathered for the demonstration, and about 1000 troops on campus. For unknown reasons, the Guard decided to break up the demonstration, and ordered the crowd to disperse. They were met with rocks and flying debris. The Guard responded with tear gas, and it was on.
I have read multiple versions of what happened next. Several facts dominate these versions: the kids were returning the tear gas cannisters (which do POP loudly like guns when they go off) and the Guard seemed very confused and didn't know what to do. At one point, none seemed sure of which direction to advance, but advance they did. At 12:22 PM, after guardsmen had advanced to the top of the hill near Taylor Hall and the parking lot, they turned and fired. They commenced firing for 13 seconds and fired 67 M-1 semiautomatic bullets. They wounded nine students, and murdered four in cold blood. Only two of these four students, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, were actually demonstrating against the war. The remaining two, Sandra Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder, were merely changing classes.
No one knows who gave the order to fire, if anyone did.
The kids in the National Guard were the same ages as the kids on the campus. These kids were all facing the same reality--the males of both groups were trying to avoid going to war. One group could afford college and the other could not, but could somehow get into the Guard. There is no question there was significant class hostility directed at the college kids by the Guard; the males in the Guard were closer to actual combat in Vietnam, although William Schroeder attended Kent on a ROTC scholarship and may well have intended to become an Officer himself.
From this incident, we learned that even the pampered children of the middle class were expendable. We learned that totalitarianism can erupt quickly and suddenly, particularly in small, contained areas where there exists considerable class hostility, panic, and loaded weapons. We learned that the Governor of Ohio was a fascist and a murderer, as was the President and his henchmen, all of whom nodded approvingly at the murders at Kent.
The lines were drawn very clearly, especially for me. I woke that morning in Ohio, to see that my state was all over the national news, all over the newspapers. We had various Moments of Silence for the next week. Everyone seemed to know someone involved. My grandmother cried and explained to me that these students were exercising their civil rights, and had been shot for it. "You have to remember this," she told me.
In the subsequent lawsuits, the families received an average of approximately $63,000 per student.
The result of this announcement was demonstrations on many American college campuses over the next few days. Nixon had promised to end the war, and proved to be a liar. The anger of the youth who would fight this war was palpable. At Kent State University in Ohio, demonstrators burned down an ROTC building. It was never known if this was deliberate or just an act of vandalism that got out of hand. Ostensibly due to this event, Governor James Rhodes declared Martial Law on the campus of Kent State University and sent the National Guard onto the campus. He also held a press conference in which he made famous inflammatory statements: "They're worse than the brownshirts and the communist element and also the night-riders and the vigilantes," Rhodes said. "They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America."
On May 4th, a demonstration was scheduled for noon. There were about 2000 people gathered for the demonstration, and about 1000 troops on campus. For unknown reasons, the Guard decided to break up the demonstration, and ordered the crowd to disperse. They were met with rocks and flying debris. The Guard responded with tear gas, and it was on.
I have read multiple versions of what happened next. Several facts dominate these versions: the kids were returning the tear gas cannisters (which do POP loudly like guns when they go off) and the Guard seemed very confused and didn't know what to do. At one point, none seemed sure of which direction to advance, but advance they did. At 12:22 PM, after guardsmen had advanced to the top of the hill near Taylor Hall and the parking lot, they turned and fired. They commenced firing for 13 seconds and fired 67 M-1 semiautomatic bullets. They wounded nine students, and murdered four in cold blood. Only two of these four students, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, were actually demonstrating against the war. The remaining two, Sandra Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder, were merely changing classes.
No one knows who gave the order to fire, if anyone did.
The kids in the National Guard were the same ages as the kids on the campus. These kids were all facing the same reality--the males of both groups were trying to avoid going to war. One group could afford college and the other could not, but could somehow get into the Guard. There is no question there was significant class hostility directed at the college kids by the Guard; the males in the Guard were closer to actual combat in Vietnam, although William Schroeder attended Kent on a ROTC scholarship and may well have intended to become an Officer himself.
From this incident, we learned that even the pampered children of the middle class were expendable. We learned that totalitarianism can erupt quickly and suddenly, particularly in small, contained areas where there exists considerable class hostility, panic, and loaded weapons. We learned that the Governor of Ohio was a fascist and a murderer, as was the President and his henchmen, all of whom nodded approvingly at the murders at Kent.
The lines were drawn very clearly, especially for me. I woke that morning in Ohio, to see that my state was all over the national news, all over the newspapers. We had various Moments of Silence for the next week. Everyone seemed to know someone involved. My grandmother cried and explained to me that these students were exercising their civil rights, and had been shot for it. "You have to remember this," she told me.
In the subsequent lawsuits, the families received an average of approximately $63,000 per student.
Some months ago when I heard Cathy Melville tell the story of the DC 9's raid on the Dow Chemical office in Washington, one moment she described struck me with the force of symbolism. She told me how they had trouble getting in through the door and finally broke into the office through a glass wall. As they were going about their work in there, scattering files, pouring blood, a stranger appeared in the hall, looked in through the large break in the glass and asked, "Is anything wrong?" Cathy told him, "No, everything's all right" and he went away, apparently assured that everything was all right.
As of course it was -- for a change -- up in that office. Here was a corporation that had been making and selling the stuff with which babies are burned alive. Some people were trying to make it harder for them to do this. To most of us, I assume, that would clearly be all right.
The difficulty is of course -- the tremendous difficulty -- that to a great many Americans the act of those nine people who scattered Dow files was a much more questionable, much more disturbing act, than the act of Dow in making and selling napalm. So that the incident Cathy reported was like a war resister's dream: you are engaged in an act of interfering with the military-industrial machine -- a death machine-- and a member of the public asks you: Should I be alarmed by what you are doing? And you tell him no-- and he accepts your reassurance.
Yes, like a dream. Because in actuality, as we confront a social apparatus that seems to us flagrantly irrational, out of control in its blind quest for wealth, dealing out death both at home and abroad--dealing it out even to children, both abroad and at home, killing its own children now, clearly a machine that must be stopped---.
But I'll interrupt myself, because the imagery I just used is inadequate. If it were just that we had to stop a death-dealing machine in its tracks, this would be relatively simple to accomplish-- although we could count on being hurt in the attempt. In a society like this one, so dependent on technology-- sabotage is terribly easy. A relatively small number of people can cause a tremendous amount of damage, can throw everything into confusion. But our task is not to wreck. Our task is to transform a society that deals out death into a society that makes life more possible for all. To build such a new society, very many people are needed. So, as we strike at the machinery of death, we have to do so in a way the general population understands, that encourages more and more people to join us.
This is surely the great challenge to the movement: How to make the public understand that it's "all right" to attack the death machine--that it is necessary? How to free their minds to see this and join us?
And here is the preposterous difficulty. We are all living now in a society so deranged that it confronts us not only with the fact that we are committing abominable crimes against others--crimes we shouldn't be able to live with; it confronts us also with threats to our own existence that no people in history have ever had to live with before. And confronts every single member of society with these threats--even the most privileged, even those in control of things, or rather, out of control of them. Confronts us, in the name of "defense," with the threat of nuclear annihilation. Confronts us, in the name of "national profit," with the threat that our environment may be completely destroyed. The society is this insanely deranged. And yet--we have to face the strange fact that most people are very much less terrified of having things continue as they are than of having people like us try to change things radically.
For most Americans are in deep awe of things-as-they-are. Even with everything this obviously out of control, they still tell themselves that those in authority must know what they are doing, and must be describing our condition to us as it really is; they still take for granted that somehow what is, what is done, must make sense, can't really be insane. These assumptions exercise a tyranny over their minds. Those of us committed to try and bring about change have above all to reckon with this tyranny, have above all to try to find out how to relieve men of it.
I read this past winter of a specially painful example, read in the Times the story of Michael Bernhardt, who was the young soldier who was the first to talk about the massacre at Songmy [later known as My Lai]. He had volunteered for service in Vietnam, full of faith in the words he had heard from his leaders about what this country was trying to do over there. He found himself almost immediately in the action at Songmy. He didn't take part in the killing. As his comrades began to shoot old people, women, babies--the reporter quotes him: "I just looked around and said, 'This is all screwed up.'" But after the action it took him quite a while to come forward and talk about it. Because he quickly experienced the eerie feeling that neither those in command of the war nor most Americans would agree with him. There is an almost unbearable passage in the story where he is quoted as saying, "Maybe this is the way wars really were...I felt like I was left out, like maybe they forgot to tell me something, that this was the way we fought wars, and everybody knew but me." The reporter writes then that the clash between this experience he had at Songmy and his convictions about his country is still something he cannot resolve. "It became almost a question of sanity." But, he writes, "if he were forced to pick, he would choose his convictions over his experiences." He quotes him as insisting, "We hold out a hope, you know."
A terrible story, and one worth being very attentive to. Here was a young man who was exceptional. He did not take part. He saw the action for what it was: all screwed up. And yet-- he did not know how to cope afterwards with this vision. It just made him feel left out. Because he suffered from the bondage I speak of--the awe of what is, of what is done. He suffered from the anxious sense that if one isn't part of it, whatever it is, one is then nowhere. And so in effect he dismisses the insight he had. Or does his best to. He chooses not to accept the truth of his own experience but something he has been told is truth: that our country "holds out a hope."
The question is: How do we cure men of this bondage? And of course, how do we cure our own selves more completely? How do we set all of us free to trust our experiences of the truth that everything is all screwed up?
....
How can we release the minds of more and more men to be able to see this? See it not just as a nightmare suffered that one tries to put out of mind; see it as meaning that we have to act to change things altogether. How do we give people the courage to trust that if they name things-as-they-are insane, they will not in doing so simply find themselves adrift?
....
[In our radical acts] We must be saying: Don't be afraid of us. It is the system that we are attacking that you need to fear--that all of us need to fear. For it is reckless with lives. But we are not. Don't fear us. What we seek is precisely a new community of men in which we are all careful of each other--and of the natural world around us. And look, we are beginning to build that world right now, in our relations with each other, in our relations even with you.
Don't be afraid of us. We are trying to release men from their fear.
Stained glass from St Mary's, Greenville, SC: Christ stills the tempest.
In case you all haven't figured out by now, I am taking a blog break for Lent.
I did not initially announce this, because I wasn't sure I could do it. Last year, I tried it and had to break my silence over the death of my favorite author. This year, I thought I would do likewise, when I heard about the death of a well-known American war criminal.* Then I thought, NO, I will not break my Lenten devotions for.... him. I might, though, for something or someone of towering importance. (The official rules are that Lenten devotions are suspended on the Sabbath, so I will try to update you on my spiritual progress every Sunday, if I have anything to say.)
~*~
I need to get centered, and perhaps I need to get my blog-stats way down first, before that can happen. I have been thoroughly confused over various Blogdonia incidents of late (such as being banned at FWD/Forward without explanation), and once again wondering if I belong here, Land of the Ultra-Connected and Always-Trendy Grad Student. Certainly, I am not as smart as ANY of these people. (And they like to tell me so, often.) But I am committed to the idea that even us not-smart people deserve a place to hang out, and deserve to have our say, even if we aren't up to the standard of FWD or similar high-toned blogs.
Does everyone have to be a genius these days? When Dubya was president, the communication standards were much lower! ;)
~*~
I'm also trying to figure out how to talk/write about fat, of all things.
I have usually worried that anything I wrote about fat, fasting and/or calorie restriction had to be very careful not to "pile on" in a fat-hating, fat-hysterical culture. As is the case with disability, it is very difficult to discuss things honestly when dread, misogyny and negativity are the rule. But the fact of the matter is: fat is not good for me.Fat is trashing me. It is indisputable that 50 extra pounds on one's knees and feet (regardless of the source of that weight) are going to be pretty damn rough on that person's knees and feet, especially if they stand/walk all day. I have decided that drastic action is necessary to prolong my working life and my overall bodily health.
In feminist Blogdonia, it is not considered progressive to say anything negative about fat, and I have therefore been very reticent to write this, although I have written about the calorie restriction movement (CRON) and related issues in the past. In a culture that thrives on jokes about the likes of Jessica freaking Simpson being fat (!!!) ...well, this is obviously not a healthy environment to talk about fat. Duly noted and understood. But I am post-menopause and at my highest weight since my pregnancy. This is not good, and I am changing it.
In the process, I have noticed that our culture's negative-obsession with fat has dovetailed with the "personal acceptance" of fat overall. We all weigh more than ever. I remember when Archie Bunker was considered a fat guy, and now... well, go over to TV-LAND and have a look at him. Does he look fat to you?
Our standards have radically changed.
I was regarded as one of the biggest girls in my school. Looking at crowds of kids congregating outside of middle schools now, I am utterly amazed by their average size; that would certainly not be true today. My middle-school-sized self would not even be considered big at all, by today's standards.
Americans are just plain consuming too much. And not just food, but in every respect. Food is only one of many things we plow through at an alarming rate. We use most of the world's oil and other natural resources. We ship our garbage everywhere. As I get more and more involved with the Green Party, these matters are increasingly on my mind.
And I am meditating and praying and will get back to you. I loves you guys! (((weeps)))
~*~
*To the right wing trolls: I will not argue this point with you and will delete all comments defending ALL Nixonian-era mass-murdering swine. Thanks in advance.
Tonight, as President Barack Obama makes a mockery of his Nobel Peace Prize and decides to escalate the Afghanistan War, I take formal leave of the Democratic Party.
I am now, officially, out the door.
I am also reminded of Lyndon Johnson's famous speech defending our similar cranked-up intervention in that Southeast Asian debacle so very long ago... Deja Vu all over again.
I regret my vote already. I should never have trusted.
And I can't do any better than Keith Olbermann on MSNBC last night, addressing the president personally:
So, much of the change for which you were elected, Sir, has thus far been understandably, if begrudgingly, tabled, delayed, made more open-ended. But patience ebbs, Mr. President. And while the first one thousand key decisions of your presidency were already made about the economy, the first public, easy-to-discern, mouse-or-elephant kind of decision comes tomorrow night at West Point at eight o'clock.
You know this, Mr. President: we cannot afford this war. Nothing makes less sense to our economy than the cost of supply for 35,000 new troops. Nothing will do more to slow economic recovery. You might as well shoot the revivified auto industry or embrace John Boehner Health Care Reform and Spray-Tan Reimbursement.
You know this, Mr. President: we cannot afford this war. Nothing makes less sense to our status in the world than for us to re-up as occupiers of Afghanistan and for you to look like you were unable to extricate yourself from a Military Chinese Finger Puzzle left for you by Bush and Cheney and the rest of Halliburton's hench-men.
And most of all, and those of us who have watched these first nine months trust both your judgment and the fact you know this, Mr. President: unless you are exactly right, we cannot afford this war. For if all else is even, and everything from the opinion of the generals to the opinion of the public is even, we cannot afford to send these troops back into that quagmire for second tours, or thirds, or fourths, or fifths.
We cannot afford this ethically, Sir. The country has, for eight shameful years, forgotten its moral compass and its world purpose. And here is your chance to reassert that there is, in fact, American Exceptionalism. We are better. We know when to stop making our troops suffer, in order to make our generals happy.
You, Sir, called for change, for the better way, for the safety of our citizens including the citizens being wasted in war-for-the-sake-of-war, for a reasserting of our moral force. And we listened. And now you must listen. You must listen to yourself.
Text of Olbermann's entire commentary (with video) here.
Presenting one of my all-time favorite songs... I first heard it when I was 12 years old. It touched me in that deep, deep place you can't verbally express ... and it always has.
As a child, it articulated my fears of unpredictable adults and their behavior at night, when the whiskey came out. I would often pretend to be asleep when I wasn't. Darkness, darkness, be my pillow, is a calming mantra I actually used before I even understood what I was doing. I can well remember edging into sleep while repeating the words to myself in my head, like prayers.
Uncle Dave played it some time ago on Uncle Dave's Dead Air, namesake of this blog. I was so thrilled to hear it again. I've also enjoyed other versions, by Mott the Hoople, Richie Havens, Cowboy Junkies and others.
But this is the perfect one.
The song was much-beloved by US infantrymen serving in Vietnam; many felt it perfectly described their fear of nightfall.
PS: There are still soldiers in Iraq. Bring them home now.
~*~
(written by Jesse Colin Young)
Darkness, Darkness
Be my pillow
Take my hand
And let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your deep
Darkness, Darkness
Hide my yearning
For the things I cannot be
Keep my mind from constant turning
Toward the things I cannot see now
Things I cannot see now
Things I cannot see
Darkness, darkness
Long and lonesome
Ease the day that brings me pain
I have felt the edge of sadness
I have known the depth of fear
Darkness, darkness, be my blanket
Cover me with the endless night
Take away, take away the pain of knowing
Fill the emptiness of right now
Emptiness of right now, now, now
Emptiness of right now
Kent State student John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of Mary Ann Vecchio discovering the slain Jeffrey Miller.
39 years ago today, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on an unarmed group of antiwar demonstrators for 13 seconds, killing four students. My piece last year, is the definitive history. (And it brought out a pesky right wing troll, as well as my very first IP banning of this site.)
I don't have anything to add to what I wrote last year.
What kind of hippie am I, that I didn't post this last year?
Happy Thanksgiving, and if you have 20 minutes, have a listen. (Remember, it's all true!) I apologize for Arlo's rather impersonal use of the word "faggots"--which might be why I didn't use it last year. This was recorded in 1967, two years before Stonewall. In the newer version, Arlo quit saying it. I am offering the original here, for historical accuracy.
See you when I get back from Atlanta, where I am taking myself and my clunky leg cast. It's healing VERY slowly, which is undoubtedly due to the fact that it wasn't properly set for 5 days. Argh. But I know if I don't go, I'll feel worse than if I do!
Annie posted a long statement from John Perry Barlow on her blog, which is just fabulous:
Ten years ago when I was a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School, I was on a panel with Senator Ted Kennedy and my tragically late sidekick John Kennedy, Jr. The focus of our discussion was determining when the Internet would likely have the pivotal role in shaping a presidential campaign that television had assumed in the 1960 election of their brother and father. Oddly, for a couple of guys who were deeply suspicious of Cyberspace, they both thought this would happen much sooner than I did, possibly as early as 2000. I said it would be a decade at least. It has now been a decade. And this will now be that election.
Among the many lines of division at contest here - between the 50's and the 60's, between football and frisbee, between a high regard for education and a contempt for it, between weed and whiskey, between Monotheism and Pantheism, between love and fear, between greed and responsibility - is the contest between the highly cybergenic Obama and the apoplectic old race-bating, fraudulently heroic, tail-hook gunning, womanizing, pathologically gambling, unindicted Keating 5 co-conspirator who is literally treasonous enough to possibly entrust the American republic during its darkest hour to a woman who has great legs and cheekbones, combined SAT scores lower than either one of mine, and who, with her "First Dude" were helping lead, until recently, the Alaskan Independence Party, a powerful pro-secession movement. (Imagine Lincoln choosing Jefferson Davis as his first running mate and you get the idea.)
McCain, that disgraceful curdle-brain, that grimacing little tantrum of spoiled Naval nepotism whose greatest military accomplishment (if you don't count crashing three multi-million jets while on joyrides, and contributing to a deck fire that almost sank the Forrestal) was in getting shot down and breaking under torture, spent the first part of the debate whining about Obama's low blows and then informed the women and children of America that his opponent had promoted an Illinois law that now legally requires doctors to refuse medical treatment to any child who somehow survives an abortion attempt. Given the abortion methods I'm familiar with, I'm inclined to think such a child would also survive the flame-throwers they'd be using against him toward the end of the movie.
But among his other qualifications for being a 21st Century President , Senator McCain remains proud that, like both Bushes before him, he is computer-illiterate and that he makes his wife Cindy deal with all that.
I thought George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had made me ashamed to be a Republican. But McCain and Palin have pretty well completed the job.
However, since God is merciful, McCain probably doesn't know what I'm talking about. He's watching the campaign on television where he's presented with an edit of reality that is far less damning to him and his campaign than the one I've been watching on the Internet. John McCain is blessed indeed to be spared the online version of himself.
On the Internet, he would see the "people's edits" immediately, like the YouTube condensation of all 3143 of his eye-blinks during last night's debate into a thirty second segment, or the highlighting of his reference to Obama's "eloquence" in a fashion that left no doubt that this was his painfully polite euphemism for the vile effluent one can squeeze out of an fast-talking sack of lying shit when he talks about the "health" - a word McCain enclosed in finger quotes - of the baby murdering "mother", who is unable to accept that a child is the natural punishment for her coozing around in fornication, which is pretty much all these black Muslim terrorist baby mamas do, if you know what I mean.
If he watched the much more elaborate coverage of the campaign on the Internet, even McCain would have to be in awe of the fact that Senator Obama has shown almost superhuman dignity, humor (as opposed to sarcasm), and that quality that Hemingway defined as courage, "grace under pressure" even while being carpet-bombed, first by the Clintons and now the McCain/Palin Golem, with six months of sucker punches, lies, trivialities, the guilt of distant or even non-existent associations (often involving black people behaving ungracefully), and now, finally, the direct incitement of murderous intent in crowds spiked with many people who are insane with racial hatred, well-armed, and trained by their government in the accurate use of long-range weapons.
He would have seen the look of enlightened acceptance on Obama's face tonight when McCain fiercely declared his pride in the people who attended his rallies, including, presumably, the ones who shout "kill him" and "off with his head." As he pronounced his appreciation for these unmasked Klansmen, someone like me who doesn't have an abused wife he can use as a computer interface could, with a slight enhancement of certain frequencies, make clearly audible the dry, cold wind that was whistling through McCain's dentures.
At this point, I must pause and ask any other digeratum who zoomed into the Senator's forehead pulse at such moments: Who do you want answering the phone at 3:00 am in the White House: someone with unassailable poise and courage or someone whose rage-readiness and blood pressure make him a fine candidate to pop a valve, thus creating the scenario in which the more blink-resistant President Palin returns the call at 3:45 am?
Who do you want salvaging the economy, someone who believes that if the government is going to recover what Bush's and McCain's cronies looted from the public treasury, the very rich will have to pay some taxes, or someone who believes that we can spend extravagantly on war, greed, weapon systems we don't need, and subsidies for our friends, while taxing only the middle class and the poor?
No, you are NOT expected to listen to all 7 minutes.
Offering this as Exhibit A, in my efforts to prove to people that revolutionary talk was all the rage in 1970, the year Bill and Bernadine were cooking up bombs in Greenwich Village and blew up three of their friends... and for the record, those are the only people they ever killed. Themselves.
As I said in the comments of my post titled the Bradley Effect, everyone got in on the act.
I wrote the following, in that thread, which I am reproducing here:
Did you ever hear the song "Monster" by Steppenwolf? I mention it (as a totally random example) because I first heard it at a redneck* party with a bunch of bikers drinking beer. I thought, WOW, since some of them were enthusiastically singing along with it, even the ones with confederate flag tattoos. And this was Bill Ayers' era.
[Mike commented on the thread]: "but that that class of radicals think different from mainstream America."
Speaking of 2008, you would be right... in fact, any time after Reagan was inaugurated, you would be right. BUT AT THE TIME???? You are dead-ass wrong. As the poet-laureate of the age so memorably sang, "There was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air." Hippies, bikers, housewives who frequented the same beauty salon my grandmother did, my neighbors, et. al. talked about revolution as if it might be inevitable, and there was even a revolutionary faction of ex-GIs against the war. Even serial killers (think: the most famous of our time) believed in revolution and made that part of their psychosis. IT WAS VERY DIFFERENT THAN NOW, and even my Republican grandfather from West Virginia thought there could be revolution.
Can I ask how old you are, and if you were there at the time? How old were you in the 70s?
As I wrote [in my Bill Ayers post linked above], I am getting fed up with the rewrites of history by people who have it wrong in countless ways. In addition, you are applying the morality of NOW to the morality of THEN, and as we all know, 20/20 hindsight is perfect.
And I offer the lyrics, also, to "Monster" (below) for those who can't get through the whole song. Musically, starts off like gangbusters alright, great middle-section, then at the end, turns into a sing-along... but again the SING-ALONG aspect was the POINT. Regular people, not Weatherman, but REGULAR PEOPLE bought this album and used to SING ALONG!!! The video I have selected, however, is pretty good. There are several versions, suggesting this song is as much of a landmark in other people's lives, as it was in mine.
This song represents so much. I wondered, as a teenager, if it meant there really might be revolution, which excited me. I was a working class kid from Ohio, and that's what I thought. The concept of revolution was not APART from the masses of mainstream America, at that time... just as now, "ordinary, mainstream America" is suddenly learning the intricacies of Wall Street economics, whether we really want to or not.
Dammit, stop rewriting history!
*one of those words I am allowed to use, but you aren't. :)
~*~
Words and music by John Kay and Jerry Edmonton
(Monster) Once the religious, the hunted and weary Chasing the promise of freedom and hope Came to this country to build a new vision Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope Like good Christians, some would burn the witches Later some got slaves to gather riches
But still from near and far to seek America They came by thousands to court the wild And she just patiently smiled and bore a child To be their spirit and guiding light
And once the ties with the crown had been broken Westward in saddle and wagon it went And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean Many the lives which had come to an end While we bullied, stole and bought our homeland We began the slaughter of the red man
But still from near and far to seek America They came by thousands to court the wild And she just patiently smiled and bore a child To be their spirit and guiding light
The blue and grey they stomped it They kicked it just like a dog And when the war over They stuffed it just like a hog
And though the past has it's share of injustice Kind was the spirit in many a way But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping Now it's a monster and will not obey
(Suicide) The spirit was freedom and justice And it's keepers seem generous and kind It's leaders were supposed to serve the country But now they won't pay it no mind 'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy And now their vote is a meaningless joke They babble about law and order But it's all just an echo of what they've been told Yeah, there's a monster on the loose It's got our heads into a noose And it just sits there watchin'
Our cities have turned into jungles And corruption is stranglin' the land The police force is watching the people And the people just can't understand We don't know how to mind our own business 'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us Now we are fighting a war over there No matter who's the winner We can't pay the cost 'Cause there's a monster on the loose It's got our heads into a noose And it just sits there watching
(America) America where are you now? Don't you care about your sons and daughters? Don't you know we need you now We can't fight alone against the monster
Our hymn this sabbath comes from the musical HAIR, by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, which you may have seen. It was a huge hit on Broadway, but not at the cinema. It's still worth watching, although I agree with the critics who say the movie, directed by Milos Forman, was seriously flawed. (Rado and Ragni believe the definitive film version has yet to be made, and I agree.)
HAIR was one of the first stage productions to go "mainstream" that invited audience participation (during the famous "Let the Sunshine In" finale). There was also a brief nude scene, which made nationwide headlines in 1968. Sermons were preached against it and teachers singled it out for major moral ridicule, thus guaranteeing that the kids would go right out and buy the record.
The following song has the distinction of being the first top-ten hit by Three Dog Night, which moved me as a 12-year-old entering Junior High School, as it was then called. I wasn't fitting in, and the song seemed to be speaking directly to me.
This time marked my first confusion over people's professed ideals and what they actually DO. As I heard young women talk earnestly about Jesus and Mary and then snottily snub the fat girls; as I saw so-called "holy" people who wouldn't give to the poor or who pointedly didn't care about the ongoing war; as I saw hippies who still wouldn't talk to the geeks because they were so embarrassingly unhip... yes, I saw clearly, and the song spoke directly to me.
And as I said last Sunday, I am still hurting from recent events that I still don't fully understand, and so... I realized, it still does.
This version, set to contemporary war images, is just perfect.
~*~
How can people be so heartless How can people be so cruel Easy to be hard Easy to be cold
How can people have no feelings How can they ignore their friends Easy to be proud Easy to say no
Especially people who care about strangers Who care about evil and social injustice Do you only care about the bleeding crowd How about a needing friend I need a friend
How can people be so heartless You know I'm hung up on you Easy to be proud Easy to say no
Especially people who care about strangers Who care about evil and social injustice Do you only care about the bleeding crowd How about a needing friend We all need a friend
How can people be so heartless How can people be so cruel Easy to be proud Easy to say no Easy to be cold Easy to say no Easy to give in Easy to say no Easy to be cold Easy to say no
The result of this announcement was demonstrations on many American college campuses over the next few days. Nixon had promised to end the war, and proved to be a liar. The anger of the youth who would fight this war was palpable. At Kent State University in Ohio, demonstrators burned down an ROTC building. It was never known if this was deliberate or just an act of vandalism that got out of hand. Ostensibly due to this event, Governor James Rhodes declared Martial Law on the campus of Kent State University and sent the National Guard onto the campus. He also held a press conference in which he made famous inflammatory statements: "They're worse than the brownshirts and the communist element and also the night-riders and the vigilantes," Rhodes said. "They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America. I think that we're up against the strongest, well-trained, militant, revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America."
On May 4th, a demonstration was scheduled for noon. There were about 2000 people gathered for the demonstration, and about 1000 troops on campus. For unknown reasons, the Guard decided to break up the demonstration, and ordered the crowd to disperse. They were met with rocks and flying debris. The Guard responded with tear gas, and it was on.
I have read multiple versions of what happened next. Several facts dominate these versions: the kids were returning the tear gas cannisters (which do POP loudly like guns when they go off) and the Guard seemed very confused and didn't know what to do. At one point, none seemed sure of which direction to advance, but advance they did. At 12:22 PM, after guardsmen had advanced to the top of the hill near Taylor Hall and the parking lot, they turned and fired. They commenced firing for 13 seconds and fired 67 M-1 semiautomatic bullets. They wounded nine students, and murdered four in cold blood. Only two of these four students, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, were actually demonstrating against the war. The remaining two, Sandra Scheuer and William Knox Schroeder, were merely changing classes.
No one knows who gave the order to fire, if anyone did.
The kids in the National Guard were the same ages as the kids on the campus. These kids were all facing the same reality--the males of both groups were trying to avoid going to war. One group could afford college and the other could not, but could somehow get into the Guard. There is no question there was significant class hostility directed at the college kids by the Guard; the males in the Guard were closer to actual combat in Vietnam, although William Schroeder attended Kent on a ROTC scholarship and may well have intended to become an Officer himself.
From this incident, we learned that even the pampered children of the middle class were expendable. We learned that totalitarianism can erupt quickly and suddenly, particularly in small, contained areas where there exists considerable class hostility, panic, and loaded weapons. We learned that the Governor of Ohio was a fascist and a murderer, as was the President and his henchmen, all of whom nodded approvingly at the murders at Kent.
The lines were drawn very clearly, especially for me. I woke that morning in Ohio, to see that my state was all over the national news, all over the newspapers. We had various Moments of Silence for the next week. Everyone seemed to know someone involved. My grandmother cried and explained to me that these students were exercising their civil rights, and had been shot for it. "You have to remember this," she told me.
In the subsequent lawsuits, the families received an average of approximately $63,000 per student.
... your rear car window is held up with duct tape.
And today it rained, causing it to fall down.
So there I was, sprinting out to my car during my break, wrestling with the window in the downpour, trying to get it to stay put, so I could tape it back up.
Where are the antiwar songs? Politico.com wonders:
An unpopular president, an unpopular war, a restless young generation eager for change — all the elements of a mass protest culture would seem to be present in this election year.
One thing is missing: a mass culture.
The Vietnam era produced an entire genre of anti-war and cultural protest songs, the best-known of which became anthems of the age.
Iraq and the Bush presidency have inspired lots of music in this tradition — but nothing that has gained a large popular audience or is vying to be a generational anthem.
Music, say some sociologists, is just one manifestation of a more fundamental trend. Opposition to the Iraq war, which commands strong majorities in the polls, has not produced mass marches on the Pentagon or shut down college campuses.
The reasons are varied, including the lack of a military draft and much lower casualty figures than were suffered in Southeast Asia 40 years ago. But another big factor is the fragmented nature of how Americans live and communicate — with no clearer example than how we listen to music.
The trend was highlighted this month when Warner Music’s Sire Records issued a 30-song soundtrack for the anti-war documentary “Body of War,” the release timed for the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. The album includes musical heavyweights like Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder and 62-year-old Neil Young, who has contributed to the anti-war songbook for both Vietnam and Iraq.
Despite the project’s star power and its appeal to multiple generations, its format — the concept album — has, for the most part, been left for dead. People today download their favorite songs from multiple albums at a time, unlike in the '60s, when an iPod would have looked like something from the set of Star Trek.
Back then, says Robert Thompson, founder of the Institute on Popular Culture at Syracuse University, protest music was inescapable.
“Those songs, whether you were listening to them in your dorm room or whether parents were upset that their kids were listening to them in the basement, you were hearing them,” Thompson said. “Those songs were the soundtrack of that period. They were in the air literally, and people had to come to grips with them.”
In today’s culture, Thompson added, music consumption tends to take place in a narrow channel.
“Now it’s completely possible for songs that are getting huge distribution one way or another amidst their core fan base to remain completely unnoticed to a fully intelligent and aware American,” Thompson said. “Back in the pre-digital, network era, we all fed from the same culture trough, whether you liked it or not .”
The biggest reason why today’s protest music is failing to echo broadly, some cultural critics believe, is not just a shortened attention span on the part of music fans, but the move to an all-volunteer military. Compulsory military service during Vietnam meant millions more families felt they had a stake in the debate.
I am currently enjoying the DVDs of the first season of the F/X series DAMAGES. Glenn Close is terrific! I realize when I watch a show like this, how starved I am for women characters my own age, even if they're mean cutthroat lawyers.
Obviously, the entertainment situation for women my age is dire.
Me and Mr Daisy are still arguing over whether No Country for Old Men deserved the Oscar for best picture. Mr Daisy still prefers the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple period.
At left: Jane Fonda's mug shot during her infamous "Hanoi Jane" period.
I don't usually get a multitude of comments on my blog, but I am hoping this time yall will jump in and add your two cents. A rather heated exchange on another blog has resulted in this post. I'm not really prepared to write it, and it keeps coming out all wrong, or at the very least, it sounds limited. Thus, I need some of you folks to help: clarify, add, subtract, criticize, correct me, whatever it takes. I welcome it. No offense at all will be taken. I would like to have a serious discussion. Canadians and other non-USA-citizens are particularly welcome: Please don't be shy.
Here are the questions for discussion:
Can one "support the troops" without supporting the war? How?
Can one criticize the atrocities of the war without actually describing in some detail WHAT "the troops" have done?
I don't think so, unless one is deliberately, determinedly vague. Yes, it's nasty over there. How nasty?
And then, the discussion grinds to a halt.
~*~
Some time during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the mantra "Support the troops!" developed into a full-fledged battle cry; a compulsory litmus test of any criticism of American military adventures abroad, which are constant and never-ending. The United States has had it's fingers in the business of so many countries, I couldn't begin to name them all. As people here at home die from no transplanted kidneys and no health insurance, we have propped up corrupt dictators with millions of dollars. We have funded covert operations in every nook and cranny of the world. We have kept countries from having elections (as we nullified the election of Ho Chi Minh), and forced others into having elections they weren't ready to have, or perhaps, didn't even want. We have invaded countries, supposedly on the behalf of other countries. The list is interminable. I am ashamed of it. This was never my decision; I wasn't consulted, although they HAVE used my money to do it. Just as I belong to the biggest bully of Christendom, the Catholic Church, I belong to the biggest bully of the nations, the USA. It is my task (my destiny?) to reform both, to do whatever I can to humanize these institutions. I seek to increase and magnify the good in them (and there IS so much good) and minimize or eliminate the bad. Needless to say, I have my work cut out for me.
Since Vietnam and the abolition of the draft (and certainly, even before), the army has been drawn from the poor and working classes of the USA. This has been deliberate. Ashley Wilkes went dashing off to fight the yankees, but that is probably how long it has been since large numbers of upper-class men enlisted, William F. Buckley and a few other adventurous rich men notwithstanding. As the Bruce Springsteen song reminded us, prisons have habitually been emptied in times of war, with poor kid-car thieves and dope dealers used as cannon fodder. During the Reagan Admin, an increase in the "college funds" incentive was added to the formidable list of military benefits in the existing G.I. Bill. Obviously, kids who already have college paid for, wouldn't find this any kind of incentive to enlist. The class element is very clearcut and unapologetic.
Eliminating the draft army and using only volunteers meant there had to be SOME incentive to enlist; three-hots-and-a-cot wasn't enough. (As my brother once said, you can get that much in JAIL, forgodsake, and jail is safer than the battlefield.) Health care for life (however slipshod, it's better than none), preference in Civil Service jobs, life insurance packages, social networking for future employment leading to a solid place in the middle class--these are valuable incentives. But above all, the free-college bribe, the G.I. Bill? That was the big enchilada, and poor kids from the ghettos, the barrios, the farms, the projects, all saw a way out.
And so, the US military had a ready supply of cannon fodder, as needed.
I will never forget the documentary film Soldier Girls, in which the girls from the Bronx tell each other they have to hang in there--they MUST endure the abusive basic training drill instructors--because then they will go back to the neighborhood in uniform, looking fine. "Everyone will see that we made it!" one girl says to the other, embracing her as she cries that she can't go on.
Thus, there is also significant pride in military service, a sense of some lofty accomplishment that is preserved as long as the mystique of the military is preserved. To question that mystique is to puncture the egos of anyone who subscribes to it, including people who have spent their lives being proud of the uniform.
The Reaganites knew all of this. Reading The American Spectator and other right-wing publications throughout the 80s, one could read their open discussions regarding how to capitalize on these emotions, the need to build "a poor man's ego" and the accompanying need to feel accomplished, important and useful. The working class/poor have so little to be proud of--we can give them this... and fight our colonialist wars in the bargain. We can make them The Few, The Proud.Be All You Can Be, was the 80s army recruitment slogan.
And now, in America, it is virtually verboten to discuss WHAT soldiering is. As a consequence, many soldiers are stunned when they find out. "Peacekeeping forces"--after all, doesn't sound so bad, as Orwell's WAR IS PEACE doesn't either. Hey, it HAS TO BE DONE. Somebody has to keep the peace, right? The PR of "peacekeeping" served two functions, one for politicians to ask for more warbucks from the voters, and one to keep the soldiers in the dark. Many soldiers have no idea whatsoever of the politics of the countries they are deployed to. They don't know the languages, religion or cultures. The army likes to keep it that way. No classes in any of that are included in Basic Training, beyond what is necessary to find one's way around. (History? We don't need no stinking history!)
~*~
In the discussion I refer to, someone actually used the phrase "they were only following orders"--apparently with no irony and no memory of the Nuremberg Trials, where that line was first popularized.
Let's backtrack a minute.
My first introduction into world politics was the Indochina Peace Campaign, a road-tour by Tom Hayden,Holly Near and Jane Fonda. I loved them all, so I went to hear them. I was 14 years old. I still have the flyer in an old scrapbook, advertising their visit to the Ohio State University campus. They had just come from their highly controversial (putting it mildly!) FTA Tour, which was made into a movie that few people have ever seen. The concept was to go to the troops directly, based on some of the ideas presented above: the soldiers are often poor and working class, and need to be educated that Vietnam is a quagmire, a no-win situation, that benefits a certain class of American profiteers. A review of the movie fills us in:
During 1971 and 1972, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland led a quasi-USO tour that played in towns outside of U.S. military bases along the West Coast and throughout the Pacific. Fonda referred to the tour as "political vaudeville" and the show itself was called "FTA" (the acronym standing for "Free the Army" and "Fuck the Army"). The audiences were primarily the men and women of the U.S. armed services, and during the tour Fonda and her company interviewed the various soldiers, sailors and marines regarding their thoughts on the Indochina slaughterhouse.
Viewing "FTA" today is like opening a long-forgotten time capsule. The film's true power comes in the frank, often rude comments from the servicemen and women who openly question the purpose and planning of the American involvement in Vietnam. Most memorable here are the members of the U.S.S. Coral Sea, who presented a petition to their superiors demanding a halt to the bombing in Vietnam; African-American soldiers and marines who angrily decried racist attitudes among the white commanding officers at the U.S. military installations, usually with an upraised fist of the Black Power movement; women serving in the U.S. Air Force who talk unhappily about sexual harassment from their male counterparts; and soldiers who pointedly refer to the dictatorial government in South Vietnam which was being presented as the democracy which they were supposedly defending. The extraordinary air of dissent that rises out of "FTA" provides a rare glimpse into a unhappy and demoralized fighting force stuck in a war which they did not believe in.
Here we clearly see that the soldiers themselves often didn't agree with what they were doing.
If there are any who do not NOW agree, we certainly aren't hearing about them.
Perhaps the "Support the Troops!" mantra only refers troops that have accepted their fates? Can we support dissident troops? (Are there any?)
~*~
In 1970, one of the bloodiest years of the Vietnam engagement, Hollywood gave us some blatant, pro-war propaganda in the movie PATTON. General Patton, of course, was a commander during World War II, not Vietnam, but in this manner, Americans could look back to a time in which we had been on the morally-correct side of a military action. It was a cozy, well-acted valentine to Richard Nixon and General Westmoreland. George C. Scott earned himself an Academy Award, which he famously refused.
Despite the fact that Hollywood is supposedly so liberal, then as now, precious few openly anti-war movies have EVER been made. (One fascinating fact is that one of the co-authors of this screenplay, Francis Ford Coppola, DID go on to make one of the greatest anti-war movies ever made, Apocalypse Now.)
~*~
Speaking personally, I will do anything to end this war. Playing games about what war is, avoiding the truth, is not the way to do it.
"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out."
Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
Letter to Mayor Calhoun of Atlanta,
September 12, 1864
