Tired of "Chicken Hawks"

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
- Thomas Mann

(German novelist and essayist whose early novels—Buddenbrooks (1900), Der Tod in Venedig (1912; Death in Venice), and Der Zauberberg (1924; The Magic Mountain)—earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929.)

I listened to a speech by our Congressman Steve King today at the dedication of our local Veteran's Memorial. To his credit, he drew attention to the nearly 510 service men and women who lose their lives every year during peace time training, who die unheralded as part of the cost of being prepared to defend our freedoms. I liked that part.

Unfortunately, mush of what he said was pretty typical pro-Bush, pro-War propaganda. He contends that you just can't solve some problems by talking and you may as well use your military as long as you have one. He mentioned how scary Iran is and even went so far as to quote Sun Tzu's "the Art of War."

I thought to myself that even heap big macho Republican god Ronald Reagan talked us into better relations with Russia, and Gary Sick, who served on the National Security Council under three presidents contends that Reagan's campaign met secretly to negotiate the release of the American hostages from Iran (but not until January 1980, so that Carter couldn't take credit). Every preschooler and kindergartener knows, to "always use your words, hitting never solves anything.".

Hello??? It's called "militarism," it's what Italy, Japan, and Germany were practicing in the 1930's. Our honored veterans of the "greatest generation" (God bless them) fought and died to defeat this viral, insidious philosophy! It seemed like Congressman King was trying to make himself sound smart by citing historical references. I think he needs to go back to school and brush up a little on both history and philosophy.

Whew! Thanks, now that I've got that out of my system, I can go write a nice, pleasant, innocuous, objective news story about the dedication of the memorial, which really is beautiful, solemn, and moving.

I always believed that America's founding fathers hoped that we would be a nation built on reason and intellect, not military might, like the great European empires that preceded and eventually spawned us. But alas, it looks like, as happens to almost all adolescents when they grow up, we have become our parents- the very thing we once held in such disdain.

This brings me to Thomas Mann's quote. I think of it as an antidote for Sun Tzu (and Machiavelli, for that matter). I think when I finish reading "Cannery Row," maybe I'll try to get my hands on some of his work. This is some of what Wikipedia says about him:

In 1930 Mann gave a public address in Berlin titled "An Appeal to Reason," in which he strongly denounced Nazism and encouraged resistance by the working class. This was followed by numerous essays and lectures in which he attacked the Nazis. At the same time, he expressed increasing sympathy for socialism and communism. In 1933 when the Nazis came to power, Mann and his wife were on holiday in Switzerland. Due to his very vociferous denunciations of Nazi policies, his son Klaus advised him not to return. However, Thomas Mann's books, in contrast to those of his brother Heinrich and his son Klaus, were not amongst the many burnt publicly by Hitler's regime in May 1933; apparently, since he was the literature Nobel laureate for 1929 (see below), they did not dare that so early. Finally in 1936 the Nazis denied officially his German citizenship.

"Images of Disorder", by social critic Michael Harrington in his collection The Accidental Century, is a highly literate account of Mann's political progression from the right to the left.

One last quick aside- at the pancake brunch before the ceremony, one member of the VFW, a retired Air Force General, called me a "reactionary liberal." I wasn't too offended because for one thing, in spite of George H. W. Bush's spin on the word back in 1988, I think that being liberal something to be proud of, even though I'm really pretty moderate to conservative on many issues. And because basically, anyone who writes about politics is reactionary, you're always reacting or responding to something. In this post, I'm reacting to what a dweeb I think my Congressman can be sometimes. The other reason I wasn't too offended, was that what he actually said was, "There's my favorite writer, of course I wish you weren't such a reactionary liberal, but you're still my favorite writer." How can you be offended by something like that? Thanks Doc.

Potent pictures

I didn't take these, one of my students who just returned from a school trip to Washington DC did. You know, when I was in high school and we were studying about the Vietnam war my best friend at the time (a girl named Dawn) and I went to see a movie in theatres called "Platoon" starring Charlie Sheen. We were both blown away, we were crying at how horrible and hellish war could be. (of course it may have been different if I'd seen it with a bunch of guys. One friend who was in ROTC thought it was a bitchin' cool fun action movie.) Dawn and I asked each other what we thought we would've done if we had been in high school or college during Vietnam. Would we support the Johnson and Nixon administrations, or would we have opposed the war. Would we have protested? What if I had been drafted?

Fortunately it was an abstract, academic exercise, since the most serious military involvement of the Reagan era was the invasion of a teensy, tiny island nation called Grenada. I really didn't know. I knew I'd be scared both to go and fight the Vietcong and to stay and fight the powers-that-be. I had two uncles who were great friends and could talk food and wine and local, municipal politics- but they never talked about the war. One went and served as a medic, the other went to Canada.

Frankly, I think that a lot of us kids of the eighties had unrealistic stereotypes of war opponents. We figured to stand up for peace would turn you into something like the fellow in the picture above, who, I was told, has been protesting for nuclear disarmament six hours a day since 1982. Well, today someone who's opposed to war, looks like a middle-aged, overweight, middle-class, Midwestern, white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant male. Married, father of three, active in his church. Laundered clothes, not too old or ragged. Showered and shaved, doesn't use drugs, has never even tried marijuana. It looks like someone who loves Jesus, loves his family, loves his country, appreciates civility and a certain amount of "law and order," and who does not hate, resent, or blame the troops who are fighting for us.

You can say that I'm lucky or spoiled that I never had to face a draft or that I'm not as much of a real man because I haven't served in the military voluntarily. And maybe you're right. Maybe as a Gen-Xer, I have it too easy. Maybe it's safer to be opposed to this war than it would've been to protest that last one. Frankly, we should all be thanking God that Iraq isn't tearing our families and society apart the way Iraq did. We may disagree, even vehemently, but we just change the subject or avoid the subject. No one is screaming in (or spitting) in faces.

But I guess that if I knew that the government lied and covered it up, if they were unclear or even obtuse about the causes and reasons for entering and staying in the war. If I heard that they were secretly invading and bombing Cambodia (practicing war games, hoping to provoke Iran)... yeah, I'd have a hard time sitting on the fence, even if it could get me in trouble.

Some say, "My country, love it or leave it!!! MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG!!!"
I say, more calmly and quietly, "My country, love it enough to tell it that it has a problem instead of enabling it. My country, when it's wrong, speak up and try to get it right."