Posted on 09/17/2003 8:43:40 AM PDT by u-89
Excerpt: many Americans take pleasure in "kicking ass," and they do not much care whose ass is being kicked or why. So long as Americans are dishing out death and destruction to a plausible foreign enemy, the red-white-and-blue jingos are happy. Visit a barbershop, stand in line at the post office or have a drink at your neighborhood tavern and listen to the conversations going on around you. The sheer bellicosity of many ordinary people is as undeniable as it is shocking...
--------------------------------------
further excerpts:
...In view of the evident futility, and worse, of nearly every war the United States has fought during the past century, how does the War Party manage to propel this nation into one catastrophe after another, each of them clearly foreseen by at least a substantial minority who failed to dissuade their fellow citizens from still another march into calamity?
An adequate answer might fill a volume, but some elements of that answer can be sketched briefly. The essential components are autocratic government, favorably disposed mass culture, public ignorance and misplaced trust, compliant mass media and political exploitation for personal and institutional advantage.
By "autocratic government" I refer to the reality of how foreign policy is made in the United States. Notwithstanding the trappings of our political system's democratic procedures, the making of foreign policy involves only a handful of people acting decisively.
When the president and his coterie of top advisers decide to go to war, they just go, and nobody can stop them. The "intelligence" agencies, the diplomatic corps and the armed forces do as they are told. Members of Congress cower and speak in mealy-mouthed phrases framed to ensure that no matter how the war turns out, they can share any credit and deny any blame. No one has effective capacity to block the president, and few officials care to do so in any event, even if they object. Rarely does anyone display the minimal decency of resigning his military commission or his appointment in the bureaucracy.
In short, in our system the president has come to hold the power of war and peace exclusively in his hands, notwithstanding anything to the contrary written in the Constitution or the laws. He might as well be Caesar.
In the late 1930s, Congress considered the Ludlow Resolution, which would have amended the Constitution to require approval in a national referendum before Congress could declare war, unless U.S. territory had been invaded. Franklin D. Roosevelt vigorously opposed such an amendment, writing to the speaker of the House on Jan. 6, 1938, that its adoption "would cripple any President in his conduct of our foreign relations." The resolution was voted down 209-188 in the House.
Of course, eventually the president who propels the country into war may have to stand for re-election, and he, or at least his party, may be repudiated. That occurred in 1920, 1952, 1968 and, perhaps, in 1992. Although on such occasions some observers always conclude that "the system worked," nothing could be further from the truth, because by the time the voters repudiate the leader responsible for plunging the nation into a senseless war, the damage has been done.
Wilson gained re-election in 1916 as the candidate who had "kept us out of war," then immediately reversed himself. Four years later, his party was turned out of the presidency. Too late.
President Lyndon Johnson campaigned against sending "American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do," then immediately reversed himself. Four years later his party was turned out of the presidency. Too late again.
Presidents decide to go to war in the context of a favorably disposed mass culture. Painful as it is for members of the Peace Party to admit, many Americans take pleasure in "kicking ass," and they do not much care whose ass is being kicked or why. So long as Americans are dishing out death and destruction to a plausible foreign enemy, the red-white-and-blue jingos are happy.
Visit a barbershop, stand in line at the post office or have a drink at your neighborhood tavern and listen to the conversations going on around you. The sheer bellicosity of many ordinary people is as undeniable as it is shocking. Something in their diet seems to be causing a remarkable volume of murderous, barely suppressed rage.
An eagerness to spill blood and guts extends, however, well beyond the rednecks. Highly literate, albeit sophistic, expressions of this proclivity appear nearly every day on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, a Likud Party megaphone whose motto might well be "all wars all the time." Establishment think tanks, most notably the American Enterprise Institute, trot out well-spoken intellectuals in squads to trumpet the necessity of wreaking global death and destruction.
Public ignorance compounds the inclinations fostered by the mass culture. Study after study and poll after poll confirm that most Americans know next to nothing about public affairs. The intricacies of foreign policy are as alien to them as the dark side of the moon, but their ignorance runs much deeper.
They can't explain the simplest elements of the political system, they don't know what the Constitution says or means and they can't identify their political representatives or what those persons ostensibly stand for. They know scarcely anything about history, and what they think they know is usually incorrect. People so densely ignorant that they have no inkling of how their forebears were bamboozled and sacrificed on the altar of Mars the last time around are easily bamboozled and readily sacrificed the next time around.
Forming a snowcap on this mountain of ignorance is a widespread willingness to trust governing authorities, especially the president. Thus, if President Bush tells the people that Iraq poses a serious threat to the United States, many believe him. Presidents and their lieutenants exploit this misplaced trust to gain popular approval for bellicose foreign policies, knowing that even if every somewhat educated or skeptical person in the country opposes the policy, it nevertheless will receive substantial support in the polls.
So long as war is something that happens "out there" somewhere, most likely in a place that few Americans have ever visited and most can't even locate on a map, and not too many body bags are delivered with sons and husbands inside, then the masses tend to find sufficient bliss in their ignorance and childlike trust in their rulers. Flag-waving and other symbolic displays bring them a cheap identification with the great nation-state, but few have any immediate contact with events in the empire. As an issue, war remains foreign to them in the literal sense -- always somebody else's problem.
Follow the link to read the entire article
So then you are arguing that the propaganda during WWII and the Cold War, never was reconciled with the history that we learned from those events? They were exercises in futility, and served no purpose? Tell me who, besides you, cries for the loss of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
The Nazis invaded much of Europe, and subsequently terrorized the citizens of the invaded states. That you could somehow try to use deceptive words to twist this around is bazaar, to say the least. Fortunately for Europe, the US came in and saved their bacon.
That you responded to my mild insinuation that you may share something in common with others who hate Jews tells me that I struck a nerve. Do you defend the Nazis in other venues as well?
Speaking of the cold war, at the end of W.W.II we had bases all over the globe. There was a move afoot to reduce our overseas positions. The cold war ensured a permanent global presence. Pretty convenient for the globalist corporations and the liberals who wanted a New Deal for the world i.e. wealth transfer from US tax payers to other nations in the form of foreign aid and fighting communism. Supplying war is very profitable and continuous war guarantees those government contracts. After serving the establishment all his life Eisenhower upon retirement warned us against the military industrial complex. Do you suppose he was an America hating leftist pacifist?
>who, besides you, cries for the loss of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
That's a crummy remark that has no bases in anything I've said. Surely you can do better than that.
Only if you are the victor.
Historically losers tend to end up dead or broken.
As they say in Michigan football country
Hail to the victors valiant,
Hail to our conquering heros !
If the US did not get involved, Germany would have had a few more years to develop the A-Bomb.
And you think that would have prevented Hitler from sending his million soilders into Poland ?
And you think that would have prevented Hitler from sending his million soilders into Poland ?
Facts are facts no matter who states them, even a leftist. Because you do not like to be confronted with them does not make them lies. Leftists have been known to draw wrong conclusions and they have been known to misrepresent the facts. The former is a matter of vision, the latter is dishonest. You can not point out to anything in my posts that are willful distortion of the facts. If you can point out a factual era on my part then I welcome correction. If you disagree with my opinion I welcome debate as long as it is civil and coherent. I fail to see where leftist college professors, Japanese internment camps or the A bomb has anything to do with this discussion on intervention and public awareness.
Did you learn to debate from Jesse Jackson? Someone is a racist because they want to reform welfare and their objections to being slandered just proves they're really a racist.
And there was nothing mild about your comment and it was more than an insinuation. Therefore I'll be blunt, you are dishonest with a viscous streak and a menace to civil discourse and honest debate.
How does squandering American lives and moneys on actions beyond our territorial jurisdiction contribute to the government's purpose to secure our lives, liberties and properties. These action in fact jeopardize the very things the government is chartered to protect yet you define it as courageous.
No, you close your ears and mind because you don't like anything that challenges your faith. Please name some good honest deeds by our government that creates such faith. During the first Gulf War president Bush said we were to "restore democracy to Kuwait." Do you believe that? At the same time James Baker said the war was about "jobs,jobs, jobs." That's an elemnet of the truth but not he whole story. You don't suppose Baker was a anti-American commie do you?
Yep, the socialists have taken to calling themselves paleocons. It's bizarre.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.