A little j'accuse from the Dayton Voice
So, I'm finally taking the time to really think about the Dayton Voice--what the experience was like for me, what it was like for others, what we tried to accomplish, how much of Dayton life it chronicled, the Voice in retrospect, and other passing thoughts. Of course, to interrogate only my own self is to make the story of the Voice about me, which it most certainly was not. To get it right, I would actually have to report, talk to others who were with the Voice and of the Voice and for the Voice, readers and writers and photographers and carriers and sales staff and fellow travelers.
And I would have to set aside time and effort to write about Marrianne McMullen and what she did as co-publisher, editor and writer. She reported some of the papers most important stories, like the Dayton Public Schools' reliance on suspension and expulsion, like what prostitution felt like to the women who had fallen into it, like what Jenny Wilcox, wrongfully convicted and incarcerated, experienced during and after her release, like how the Voice was Marrianne's inspiration.
But as important as it is to make sure that my story of the Voice is not some hagiographic fantasy of myself, I'm going to end this post with a pretty complete transcription of a piece I wrote for the April 20, 1996 issue of the paper about Vietnam, Kennedy-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and U.S. media at the time. In that piece, McNamara didn't lie alone," I was, per usual, much more opinion writer than reporter. And so it goes:
"Last week, the Dayton Daily News joined others in the mainstream media in criticizing former Secretary of Defense robert McNamara for hiding the truth about Vietnam. A News editorial chided McNamara for his "late, awfully late" revelations about the mistakes and failures of the devastating war against Vietnam.
"As the News would have it, the prolonged agony of the war was the responsibility of those who governed at the time and especially of an elite few, McNamara included. Americans wanted to trust their government, but the "...leadership at the top carries...the guilt of having hidden the truth from the American people," said the editorial.
"But DDN misses the point--as it must--that it took an enormous collaborative effort to hide the "truth." And the mainstream media was crucial to that collaboration, the News included.
"The media cooperated in a White House strategy of burying inconvenient facts, and omitted critical perspectives in covering the war. Such editorial policy facilitated the physical devastation of Vietnam, submerged the deepening impoverishment of parts of the United States and, ultimately undermined faith not only in American government, but in the media as well.
"After all, the truth about the war was known fairly early. In 1964, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf resolution that authorized President Johnson "to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force" to oppose the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. But in March 1968, I. F. Stone reported in the New York Review that the alleged North Vietnamese attack in international waters on U.S. ships--the incident that the Johnson administration used to obtain passage of the declaration--actually had been a violation of North Vietnamese coastal waters and an attack provoked by the actions of the U.S. Navy. The News ought to check its own file library to see when, if ever, the paper reported that the Congressional quasi-declaration of war had been passed in response to an invented incident.
"Anti-war organizing [at the time] was based on a variety of different considerations. The United States, activists believed, had no legitimate national interest at stake in Vietnam and no reason to fight to maintain client regimes in the old outposts of French colonialism. Of course, rich ore and oil deposits in Southeast Asia and Indonesia were at stake, but access to these resources was not an admitted goal of U.S. war policy.
"Instead, we were fighting to stop a communist takeover and protect the "free world," even though a Vietnamese election in 1956 and agreed to by Ho Chi Minh was stopped by the Eisenhower administration. The News can check to see when it reported that Ngo Dinh Diem was installed with the support of the United States in preference to a freely elected Communist government."
"The national news media, and local outposts like the News, were delighted with the spectacle of protest, which they covered, and uninterested in the substance of these protests. The News, which helped to perpetuate the myth that opposition to the war tied the hands of the U.S. military, ought to go back and check its files to see when, if ever, it reported that more tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam than were dropped on Europe and Japan during all of World War II.
"Thought the media was comfortable with the studied and persistent omission of the facts about the air bombardment of Vietnam, they delighted in reporting about alleged abuses of returning Vietnam vets by war protestors. The News might consider how many times it covered abuses of vets compared to the far more frequent physical assaults on protestors. Further, compare that to coverage of the estimated 200 or more massacres of Vietnamese villagers by American ground forces. These events were common knowledge among Vietnam vets and war protestors. They were "truths" that Washington elites and a cooperative press ignored.
"The cost of the military build-up resulted in severely underfunding anti-poverty programs. That is one reason why Dr. Martin Luther King spoke out against the war. The News might check its files to see how ofteh the paper reported on Dr. king's opposition to the war.
"Yes, it is terrible that Robert McNamara waited so long to confess. After all, 60,000 Americans and 400,000 Vietnamese died in the war. But mainstream dailies told precious little truth about the war and the Dayton Daily News' editorial maintains that tradition. "Awfully late" is too soon to expect an apology from the News."
"McNamara didn't lie alone," Dayton Voice, April 20, 1995.
Showing posts with label anti-war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-war. Show all posts
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Libyan War is...
A. a bad idea.
B. a necessary evil. Innocent people are dying. U.S. intervention will keep Gaddafi from murdering his people.
C. not the outcome of constitutional deliberation and process.
D. a sign of Obama's weak leadership
E. a good idea.
F. What kind of phony discussion is this? The war in Libya is another undeclared war based on a (probably incorrect calculation of) national interests that will cost the United States much more than it delivers and will fall far short of any reasonable humanitarian goal.
There is a G, of course, namely that the whole idea of intervention in Libya is confusing and difficult to assess. The probabilities seem fairly high that, if Americans were to respond to a poll asking such a question and offering A through G as possible responses, a plurality would likely admit confusion and choose G. A good number might also support the idea that some sort of humanitarian intervention is necessary. A relative few would be likely to choose A, a bad idea.
On Tuesday, March 22, the Washington Post op-ed page featured five pieces offering some sort of counsel in regard to the choice. The five opinion writers, Anne Applebaum, George Will, Michael Gerson, Richard Cohen and Eugene Robinson, arguably came down on the side of B, C (with a leaning toward A), D & B, D & B, and F (or at least, A), respectively.
Only Applebaum, in "Aim low on Libya," expresses strong support for intervention and excuses the week-long delay in getting there, arguing that quicker or more enthusiastic intervention would have resulted in a widespread perception of American war-mongering. It made sense in this case, she says, to wait for the British and the French to take the lead.
Will doesn't believe that Obama's reasons for intervening were constitutional, persuasive or grounded in a reasonable grasp of history. He calls Obama's observation that Gaddafi has lost all credibility with the Libyan people "meretricious boilerplate [apparently] designed to anesthetize thought." Will helpfully brings history into the discussion, citing the Bay of Pigs and the Vietnam War as experiences that could teach valuable lessons. His use of history would be even more effective here had he previously bothered to vigorously play the unconstitutional card in regard to the two wars against Iraq launched by the Bushes, father and son.
Michael Gerson, a speech writer for Bush II before he got his job as a Post columnist, endorses the attacks on Libya upfront in "Obama's late arrival," but then spends an additional 800 or so words complaining that Senators Kerry, McClain and Lieberman were quicker to arrive at the public conclusion that intervention was necessary. This appears to be so, but significance ought to be a criterion for the Post's op-ed pages.
Bombing Gadaffi might get us to the end of the "old order in the Middle East" and lead to the "stability and prosperity [that] are powerful antitodes to the violent urges of nihlism and extremism," as Gerson writes. Then, again, maybe bombing, which the United States has engaged in from time to time these last many years, provides some sort of evidence that stability and prosperity are not always antidotes to violent urges.
Richard Cohen, who plays an establishment liberal to Gerson's establishment conservative in the pages of the Post, doesn't like the way Obama governs, either, but makes the case with a little bit more humor than Gerson. In "Uncle Miltie's plan," Cohen does make the helpful point that "the search for a Unified Theory of What Is Happening [in the Middle East] is futile" and details why. All the same, Cohen's chief criticism of Obama appears to be that the president lacks a unified theory. The administration, Cohen concludes, "could have made an argument for staying out [of Libya] or a more forceful argument for going in. Instead it made both. "Milton Berle now plays the White House," he writes. And, no doubt, also haunts Cohen's ambivalent dreams.
Way below the bottom of the fold comes Eugene Robinson's "The dictators we need." Perhaps placement on the page reflects the Post's assessment of the merits of Robinson's argument, but it does have the virtue of clarity. After noting that Gadaffi is a genuine villain, threatening to "turn all of Libya into a charnel house," a blunt description of the allied intevention "clearly intended to cripple the government and boost the revolt's chances of success," Robinson offers a real-politik survey of U.S. relations with other autocrats in the Middle East. He concludes with the observation that the world would be better off without Gaddafi, "but war in Libya is justifiable only if we are going to hold compliant dictators to the same standards we set for defiant ones. If not, please spare us all the homilies about universal rights and freedoms. We'll know this isn't about justice, it's about power."
Perhaps Robinson's observation explains why, amidst all the opinions, pro, con and in between, we aren't hearing from Republican budget hawks about the cost of war. We never do.
But surely, in a country where state governments are moving to outlaw collective bargaining rights for public employees, and public school teachers are being pink-slipped for budgetary reasons, some strong right-wing voice could be heard shouting above the din that we are already spent more than one trillion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (see Costofwar.com) and can ill-afford another engagement that will raise the cost by billions of dollars (Tomahawk missles cost $570,000 each, the F-15 that crashed a couple of days ago cost $30 million, the first day of combat in Libya coast an estimated $100 million). Alas, no such voice is to be heard.
Is it reasonable, to follow Robinson, to observe that most weapons manufacturers are Republicans, frequently generous campaign contributors, and huge fans of reorders for expensive weapons and expended munitions? I mean, in what other business does a reorder for a single item gross upwards of one-half million dollars?
On his Nation blog, in "Ten calls from Congress for a debate about war," John Nichols appears clear (oxymoron?) on one point: If it is to happen, Congress should authorize military action in Libya. The point is legalistic, perhaps necessary, historically venerated, and insufficient.
If Libya is a humanitarian tragedy about to happen, then any war effort mounted in response ought to be congressionally authorized. But if action is necessary, congressional authorization is not enough. And if Congress does not authorize, and tragedy occurs, what would be America's share of the blame? Further, by how much would a Congressional vote to authorize be delayed as a consequence of behind-the-scenes jockeying to put off such a vote? So, no, Nichol's apparent position lacks gravity and, hopefully, does the Nation an injustice.
But the Nation did editorialize on March 18 in response to the prospect of U.S. intervention. The editors have much to say and make many useful points about the sorry history of U.S. intervention in the Middle East (Libya's in North Africa, but who's counting?) and in Arab countries. I think the piece is a must-read, but I really can't tell if they mean to endorse no-fly zones or other intervention.
Here's the thing, G (the whole Libya-thing is confusing and difficult to assess) is the most understandable answer, but I keep thinking that if I were to remain mindful of the lies and misrepresentations that preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq, that preceded the first Gulf War, that justified the embargo of Iraq (which may have caused the deaths of 1,000,000 Iraqis, including 500,000 children), that accompany U.S. aid to Israel and support the continuing oppression, dislocation and disenfranchisement of Palestinians, that excuse or obscure the human rights violations of a dozen key American allies, that hide the profits of war to a select few and shed theatrical tears for the losses of many, if I keep all those things in mind, then the only honest and reasonable answer for me to make is F (What kind of phony discussion is this? The war in Libya is another undeclared war based on a probably incorrect calculation of national interests that will cost the United States much more than it delivers and will fall far short of any reasonable humanitarian goal.)
Regardless, having gone to war (again), let us conclude with a prayer, Mark Twain's War Prayer, which includes this (among its many lines):
and so on.
B. a necessary evil. Innocent people are dying. U.S. intervention will keep Gaddafi from murdering his people.
C. not the outcome of constitutional deliberation and process.
D. a sign of Obama's weak leadership
E. a good idea.
F. What kind of phony discussion is this? The war in Libya is another undeclared war based on a (probably incorrect calculation of) national interests that will cost the United States much more than it delivers and will fall far short of any reasonable humanitarian goal.
There is a G, of course, namely that the whole idea of intervention in Libya is confusing and difficult to assess. The probabilities seem fairly high that, if Americans were to respond to a poll asking such a question and offering A through G as possible responses, a plurality would likely admit confusion and choose G. A good number might also support the idea that some sort of humanitarian intervention is necessary. A relative few would be likely to choose A, a bad idea.
On Tuesday, March 22, the Washington Post op-ed page featured five pieces offering some sort of counsel in regard to the choice. The five opinion writers, Anne Applebaum, George Will, Michael Gerson, Richard Cohen and Eugene Robinson, arguably came down on the side of B, C (with a leaning toward A), D & B, D & B, and F (or at least, A), respectively.
Only Applebaum, in "Aim low on Libya," expresses strong support for intervention and excuses the week-long delay in getting there, arguing that quicker or more enthusiastic intervention would have resulted in a widespread perception of American war-mongering. It made sense in this case, she says, to wait for the British and the French to take the lead.
Will doesn't believe that Obama's reasons for intervening were constitutional, persuasive or grounded in a reasonable grasp of history. He calls Obama's observation that Gaddafi has lost all credibility with the Libyan people "meretricious boilerplate [apparently] designed to anesthetize thought." Will helpfully brings history into the discussion, citing the Bay of Pigs and the Vietnam War as experiences that could teach valuable lessons. His use of history would be even more effective here had he previously bothered to vigorously play the unconstitutional card in regard to the two wars against Iraq launched by the Bushes, father and son.
Michael Gerson, a speech writer for Bush II before he got his job as a Post columnist, endorses the attacks on Libya upfront in "Obama's late arrival," but then spends an additional 800 or so words complaining that Senators Kerry, McClain and Lieberman were quicker to arrive at the public conclusion that intervention was necessary. This appears to be so, but significance ought to be a criterion for the Post's op-ed pages.
Bombing Gadaffi might get us to the end of the "old order in the Middle East" and lead to the "stability and prosperity [that] are powerful antitodes to the violent urges of nihlism and extremism," as Gerson writes. Then, again, maybe bombing, which the United States has engaged in from time to time these last many years, provides some sort of evidence that stability and prosperity are not always antidotes to violent urges.
Richard Cohen, who plays an establishment liberal to Gerson's establishment conservative in the pages of the Post, doesn't like the way Obama governs, either, but makes the case with a little bit more humor than Gerson. In "Uncle Miltie's plan," Cohen does make the helpful point that "the search for a Unified Theory of What Is Happening [in the Middle East] is futile" and details why. All the same, Cohen's chief criticism of Obama appears to be that the president lacks a unified theory. The administration, Cohen concludes, "could have made an argument for staying out [of Libya] or a more forceful argument for going in. Instead it made both. "Milton Berle now plays the White House," he writes. And, no doubt, also haunts Cohen's ambivalent dreams.
Way below the bottom of the fold comes Eugene Robinson's "The dictators we need." Perhaps placement on the page reflects the Post's assessment of the merits of Robinson's argument, but it does have the virtue of clarity. After noting that Gadaffi is a genuine villain, threatening to "turn all of Libya into a charnel house," a blunt description of the allied intevention "clearly intended to cripple the government and boost the revolt's chances of success," Robinson offers a real-politik survey of U.S. relations with other autocrats in the Middle East. He concludes with the observation that the world would be better off without Gaddafi, "but war in Libya is justifiable only if we are going to hold compliant dictators to the same standards we set for defiant ones. If not, please spare us all the homilies about universal rights and freedoms. We'll know this isn't about justice, it's about power."
Perhaps Robinson's observation explains why, amidst all the opinions, pro, con and in between, we aren't hearing from Republican budget hawks about the cost of war. We never do.
But surely, in a country where state governments are moving to outlaw collective bargaining rights for public employees, and public school teachers are being pink-slipped for budgetary reasons, some strong right-wing voice could be heard shouting above the din that we are already spent more than one trillion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (see Costofwar.com) and can ill-afford another engagement that will raise the cost by billions of dollars (Tomahawk missles cost $570,000 each, the F-15 that crashed a couple of days ago cost $30 million, the first day of combat in Libya coast an estimated $100 million). Alas, no such voice is to be heard.
Is it reasonable, to follow Robinson, to observe that most weapons manufacturers are Republicans, frequently generous campaign contributors, and huge fans of reorders for expensive weapons and expended munitions? I mean, in what other business does a reorder for a single item gross upwards of one-half million dollars?
On his Nation blog, in "Ten calls from Congress for a debate about war," John Nichols appears clear (oxymoron?) on one point: If it is to happen, Congress should authorize military action in Libya. The point is legalistic, perhaps necessary, historically venerated, and insufficient.
If Libya is a humanitarian tragedy about to happen, then any war effort mounted in response ought to be congressionally authorized. But if action is necessary, congressional authorization is not enough. And if Congress does not authorize, and tragedy occurs, what would be America's share of the blame? Further, by how much would a Congressional vote to authorize be delayed as a consequence of behind-the-scenes jockeying to put off such a vote? So, no, Nichol's apparent position lacks gravity and, hopefully, does the Nation an injustice.
But the Nation did editorialize on March 18 in response to the prospect of U.S. intervention. The editors have much to say and make many useful points about the sorry history of U.S. intervention in the Middle East (Libya's in North Africa, but who's counting?) and in Arab countries. I think the piece is a must-read, but I really can't tell if they mean to endorse no-fly zones or other intervention.
Here's the thing, G (the whole Libya-thing is confusing and difficult to assess) is the most understandable answer, but I keep thinking that if I were to remain mindful of the lies and misrepresentations that preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq, that preceded the first Gulf War, that justified the embargo of Iraq (which may have caused the deaths of 1,000,000 Iraqis, including 500,000 children), that accompany U.S. aid to Israel and support the continuing oppression, dislocation and disenfranchisement of Palestinians, that excuse or obscure the human rights violations of a dozen key American allies, that hide the profits of war to a select few and shed theatrical tears for the losses of many, if I keep all those things in mind, then the only honest and reasonable answer for me to make is F (What kind of phony discussion is this? The war in Libya is another undeclared war based on a probably incorrect calculation of national interests that will cost the United States much more than it delivers and will fall far short of any reasonable humanitarian goal.)
Regardless, having gone to war (again), let us conclude with a prayer, Mark Twain's War Prayer, which includes this (among its many lines):
"help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;
help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead;
help us to drown the thunder of the guns
with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;"
and so on.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Most Dangerous Man in America
How do we go from individual acts of courage to a mass movement for peace and justice?
In 1971, when the first of the Johnson administration's major escalations of the war in Vietnam was already a decade old, the New York Times began publishing portions of the Pentagon Papers, a Rand Corporation study of the history of U.S. military and political involvement in Southeast Asia. Daniel Ellsberg, a high-ranking strategist at Rand, working under a contract with the Pentagon, copied and leaked the top secret report to the Times, the Washington Post, 17 other newspapers and several members of Congress.
The story of Ellsberg's evolution from elite war strategist to anti-war activist is told in The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, a documentary that premiered Friday night in D.C. and several other cities. Former Alaska senator Mike Gravel, who moderated a question and answer session after the showing, was also featured in the film for his role in inserting the whole of the Pentagon Papers into the official records of a Senate sub-committee he chaired. The Q and A, featuring Ellsberg, himself, and filmmaker Rick Goldsmith, highlighted a few key issues connected to the absence of a contemporary anti-war movement and apparent obstacles to movement-building; but passing through a sustained challenge to one's courage and integrity, as Ellsberg did on his journey to leaking the documents (and Gravel did, as well, in reading portions during a formal session of his sub-committee) does not automatically qualify one to speculate about how to build a movement.
Perhaps, it is uncharitable of me to carp about Ellsberg and Gravel, who deserve virtually any applause they get for their individual acts of moral courage and for their lifetime commitment to peace and justice, as well. But I have a churlish streak, so I will plunge ahead with the point that both Ellsberg and Gravel (and "The Most Dangerous Man...) seem essentially unaware that they were standing on the shoulders of a movement when they shared the secret papers with an apparently astounded public. Yes, the movie does acknowledge a certain measure of movement activity, of clashes between demonstrators and police, and of leadership from a select few politicians, but the nod is only cursory; the film goes so far as to claim that with his actions Ellsberg set in motion a series of events that ultimately led to President Nixon's resignation and the end of the Vietnam War.
This strikes me as very bad and unhelpful history. By 1969, the year when Ellsberg made the decision to begin copying the Pentagon Papers, the anti-war movement had already made the war a political hot potato. By that time, the first of thousands of campus teach-ins against the war (at the University of Michigan) was already five years past. Also earlier, on April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a sermon at the Riverside Church in New York City ("A Time to Break Silence") first linked the civil rights struggle to the war in Vietnam.
From that point forward King moved beyond his brief as a leader of the civil rights movement to become a leader of the opposition to the war in Vietnam. A year later, in a tragic moment that injected a fresh moral energy to both movements, but also added to a growing cultural and social division in the country, King was assassinated.
It was also the movement (and therefore a collective expression of a myriad of moments of individual courage) that forced President Johnson to give up the presidency at the end of his first full term in 1968. And on May 4, 1970, the National Guard fired on a crowd of demonstrators at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding thirteen. Ten days after Kent State, the police in Jackson, Miss. fired on a crowd of students at Jackson State University. Two students were killed, another 15 were wounded. Though the series of demonstrations at Jackson State began as a civil rights protest incited by an incident in which a white motorist injured a black pedestrian, there was also a strong anti-war message infused in the demonstrations organized by students at the historically black university.
All of this and much more was part of the zeitgeist that inspired, shaped and affirmed Ellsberg and Gravel and others in their individual acts of conscience. And all this matters because in this history lie the lessons we must learn if a movement for peace and economic and environmental justice is to develop early in the 21st Century. The first person to speak during the Q&A following the film on Friday night was an older guy who spoke about his own despair over the absence of a viable popular movement in the U.S. Neither Ellsberg nor Gravel could speak to the question of how a movement develops though they both asserted that there is always hope; hope that is kindled in individual acts of resistance. This is reasonable and true, but we cannot mistake the moment in time when an otherwise collaborationist media publishes something like the Pentagon Papers as a pivotal moment in the development of a movement.
That moment comes when a mature movement has already forced people in positions of influence who have remained studiously neutral or have been complicit, as Ellsberg himself was, to confront their own consciences. In such a moment, some, like the editors at the New York Times and Washington Post, may finally make the decision to do the right thing and publish the truth, or a reasonable facsimile. The crowd at the premiere seemed to believe that the publication of the Pentagon Papers was an act of journalistic courage, but the comments of the Washington editor of the Times suggest something else. Once we had the documents in our possession, he said, we had to publish. If we had not, and the public had ever found out what we knew, it would have ruined the newspaper.
It is worth noting here, in the autumn of the newspaper publishing business, that journalists need not rue the fate of our great newspapers who have failed to relentlessly investigate and publish the truth about our war frauds in Iraq and Afghanistan. The end of the major urban dailies is at hand, in any case. By and large, the public has lost interest in their fate. So it should also be obvious that no strategy for building a movement can depend, in any part, on newspaper or, even, television news coverage. Audiences are too fragmented and have too many media choices for any message from any source to fall on millions at once with the same impact.
The good news here is not that I have any better idea how to build a movement than do Dan Ellsberg or Mike Gravel. The good news is that elements of that movement already exist. They exist in affinity groups and collectives focused on individual issues. Elements of the next movement exist in neighborhood collaborations aimed at improving local schools or reclaiming abandoned housing. Elements exist even here, in Washington, where some electeds, like Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich keep fighting the good fight. There are also organizations fighting for economic and environmental justice on a global scale. Though labor unions are only a pale shadow of what they once were, some unions continue to organize low-wage workers and strategize ways to connect to a larger movement.
None of this is enough. What is missing here is a critical mass of young people who have not yet fully compromised with prevailing attitudes or who are not yet resigned to a comfortable cynicism. I do not know how to persuade people 30 or 40 years younger than me that their future, that the future of the world they will grow into is at risk; that to be 50- or 60-something in 2040 will be a lot more unpleasant than being that age now. I cannot even say persuasively how I know this to be true (though I will keep working on my argument that it is so). Nor can I say what exactly is required of me now. But I will say that I won't stop thinking or writing about these questions until I have better answers. And when I get to that happy point, I'll keep working on the same questions, anyway, because nothing less is required of each of us.
In 1971, when the first of the Johnson administration's major escalations of the war in Vietnam was already a decade old, the New York Times began publishing portions of the Pentagon Papers, a Rand Corporation study of the history of U.S. military and political involvement in Southeast Asia. Daniel Ellsberg, a high-ranking strategist at Rand, working under a contract with the Pentagon, copied and leaked the top secret report to the Times, the Washington Post, 17 other newspapers and several members of Congress.
The story of Ellsberg's evolution from elite war strategist to anti-war activist is told in The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, a documentary that premiered Friday night in D.C. and several other cities. Former Alaska senator Mike Gravel, who moderated a question and answer session after the showing, was also featured in the film for his role in inserting the whole of the Pentagon Papers into the official records of a Senate sub-committee he chaired. The Q and A, featuring Ellsberg, himself, and filmmaker Rick Goldsmith, highlighted a few key issues connected to the absence of a contemporary anti-war movement and apparent obstacles to movement-building; but passing through a sustained challenge to one's courage and integrity, as Ellsberg did on his journey to leaking the documents (and Gravel did, as well, in reading portions during a formal session of his sub-committee) does not automatically qualify one to speculate about how to build a movement.
Perhaps, it is uncharitable of me to carp about Ellsberg and Gravel, who deserve virtually any applause they get for their individual acts of moral courage and for their lifetime commitment to peace and justice, as well. But I have a churlish streak, so I will plunge ahead with the point that both Ellsberg and Gravel (and "The Most Dangerous Man...) seem essentially unaware that they were standing on the shoulders of a movement when they shared the secret papers with an apparently astounded public. Yes, the movie does acknowledge a certain measure of movement activity, of clashes between demonstrators and police, and of leadership from a select few politicians, but the nod is only cursory; the film goes so far as to claim that with his actions Ellsberg set in motion a series of events that ultimately led to President Nixon's resignation and the end of the Vietnam War.
This strikes me as very bad and unhelpful history. By 1969, the year when Ellsberg made the decision to begin copying the Pentagon Papers, the anti-war movement had already made the war a political hot potato. By that time, the first of thousands of campus teach-ins against the war (at the University of Michigan) was already five years past. Also earlier, on April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a sermon at the Riverside Church in New York City ("A Time to Break Silence") first linked the civil rights struggle to the war in Vietnam.
Soon, if not already, King said, our troops "must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated must surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create a hell for the poor."
From that point forward King moved beyond his brief as a leader of the civil rights movement to become a leader of the opposition to the war in Vietnam. A year later, in a tragic moment that injected a fresh moral energy to both movements, but also added to a growing cultural and social division in the country, King was assassinated.
It was also the movement (and therefore a collective expression of a myriad of moments of individual courage) that forced President Johnson to give up the presidency at the end of his first full term in 1968. And on May 4, 1970, the National Guard fired on a crowd of demonstrators at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding thirteen. Ten days after Kent State, the police in Jackson, Miss. fired on a crowd of students at Jackson State University. Two students were killed, another 15 were wounded. Though the series of demonstrations at Jackson State began as a civil rights protest incited by an incident in which a white motorist injured a black pedestrian, there was also a strong anti-war message infused in the demonstrations organized by students at the historically black university.
All of this and much more was part of the zeitgeist that inspired, shaped and affirmed Ellsberg and Gravel and others in their individual acts of conscience. And all this matters because in this history lie the lessons we must learn if a movement for peace and economic and environmental justice is to develop early in the 21st Century. The first person to speak during the Q&A following the film on Friday night was an older guy who spoke about his own despair over the absence of a viable popular movement in the U.S. Neither Ellsberg nor Gravel could speak to the question of how a movement develops though they both asserted that there is always hope; hope that is kindled in individual acts of resistance. This is reasonable and true, but we cannot mistake the moment in time when an otherwise collaborationist media publishes something like the Pentagon Papers as a pivotal moment in the development of a movement.
That moment comes when a mature movement has already forced people in positions of influence who have remained studiously neutral or have been complicit, as Ellsberg himself was, to confront their own consciences. In such a moment, some, like the editors at the New York Times and Washington Post, may finally make the decision to do the right thing and publish the truth, or a reasonable facsimile. The crowd at the premiere seemed to believe that the publication of the Pentagon Papers was an act of journalistic courage, but the comments of the Washington editor of the Times suggest something else. Once we had the documents in our possession, he said, we had to publish. If we had not, and the public had ever found out what we knew, it would have ruined the newspaper.
It is worth noting here, in the autumn of the newspaper publishing business, that journalists need not rue the fate of our great newspapers who have failed to relentlessly investigate and publish the truth about our war frauds in Iraq and Afghanistan. The end of the major urban dailies is at hand, in any case. By and large, the public has lost interest in their fate. So it should also be obvious that no strategy for building a movement can depend, in any part, on newspaper or, even, television news coverage. Audiences are too fragmented and have too many media choices for any message from any source to fall on millions at once with the same impact.
The good news here is not that I have any better idea how to build a movement than do Dan Ellsberg or Mike Gravel. The good news is that elements of that movement already exist. They exist in affinity groups and collectives focused on individual issues. Elements of the next movement exist in neighborhood collaborations aimed at improving local schools or reclaiming abandoned housing. Elements exist even here, in Washington, where some electeds, like Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich keep fighting the good fight. There are also organizations fighting for economic and environmental justice on a global scale. Though labor unions are only a pale shadow of what they once were, some unions continue to organize low-wage workers and strategize ways to connect to a larger movement.
None of this is enough. What is missing here is a critical mass of young people who have not yet fully compromised with prevailing attitudes or who are not yet resigned to a comfortable cynicism. I do not know how to persuade people 30 or 40 years younger than me that their future, that the future of the world they will grow into is at risk; that to be 50- or 60-something in 2040 will be a lot more unpleasant than being that age now. I cannot even say persuasively how I know this to be true (though I will keep working on my argument that it is so). Nor can I say what exactly is required of me now. But I will say that I won't stop thinking or writing about these questions until I have better answers. And when I get to that happy point, I'll keep working on the same questions, anyway, because nothing less is required of each of us.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
War As Profit Opportunity
Why we need a military draft, why we won't get one
On Monday, Fresh Air host Terry Gross introduced an interview (on-line here) about civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan by quoting a severely injured contractor who said, "It's almost like we are an invisible, discardable army."
This particular contractor got both legs blown off by a roadside bomb and subsequently discovered that he was not entitled to any sort of federal compensation for his loss or for his health care. He had to fight his private insurance company to get a shot at prosthetic legs. I didn't hear all of the interview with reporter T. Christian Miller, so I don't know if the conversation pursued the deeper point that while the US maintains both an all-volunteer army and a private mercenary army, war becomes a profit opportunity that is largely shielded from effective political opposition.
Here we are, involved in two of the longest wars in American history, at a cost to the federal government of over one trillion dollars and climbing, with minimal effective public and Congressional opposition to those wars. The Vietnam War, in its many phases--military advisers and trainers, CIA mercenary armies, the mobilization of a fighting force over 600,000 strong, and secret bombings and incursions in Cambodia and Laos--was longer and killed far more American soldiers than have been killed to date in Iraq and Afghanistan (more information here and here). The Vietnam War also killed more civilians than the current wars have killed so far, but the difference is not worth applauding.
But here's the thing: the Vietnam War was pursued by two presidents in the face of relentlessly increasing public opposition. Though that opposition did not end the war in a timely way, say, 1969 or '70, rather than 1975, active resistance and public disapproval forced both Presidents Johnson and Nixon to conduct portions of the war in secrecy and otherwise compromise war aims. Arguably, public and Congressional opposition is also forcing compromise on President Obama, but it seems more likely that weapons manufacturers and military contractors are currently forcing political compromises that will prolong those wars.
Indeed, the influence of the military-industrial complex might right now be at an all-time high, at least in proportion to the influence of the public and anti-war organizations. In each of the six complete election cycles since 1998, the contributions of corporations in the war business have climbed 10 to 20 percent, with the exception of the 2008 cycle when the increase was
more than 20 percent (go here to explore the ugly truth, note that the 2010 cycle promises to break all previous records). In a 1997 article, "Guns r' Us" in In These Times, a magazine I worked at for two years, writer Martha Honey recounts the many ways that weapons manufacturers seek to increase markets for their products. Ten+ years later, the situation is worse.
Of course, anti-war opposition has limited some of the options of those who would rather pursue the current wars more vigorously. But the practices of maintaining an all-volunteer army, and employing contractors to reduce the direct cost of war, have obvious roots in the lessons that political, military and corporate chiefs learned from the civil unrest and mass opposition that they confronted during the Vietnam War.
First, make sure that large numbers of people do not serve in the front-lines in a manner that is obviously against their will. This lesson was initially applied with the end of active conscription in December 1972. To ensure an adequate supply of volunteers, regular pay for members of the armed forces was increased significantly in 1971. By itself, the pay increase would not have been sufficient, but by the mid-'70s, the economy began to stagnate and the real value of workers pay began to drop; to drop far enough, in fact, that many women not in the workforce at the time, began to work in order to maintain household income. Thus began a cascade of economic changes (including relative reductions in unemployment compensation, financial aid for higher education, cuts in welfare payments and childcare) that has often made enlistment in the all-volunteer army an economically coerced decision. This state of affairs has made it much more difficult for many working people to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the use of private companies providing personnel for security and other non-military services (like transport, food prep and garbage services) has helped to reduce war visibility and exported some of the costs of the war onto the shoulders of those least able to afford it and powerless to do much about it. These are the individuals who work under contract with the Blackwaters and Brown & Roots who pull down tens of millions of dollars annually from the Pentagon. These individuals, like the man quoted at the beginning of Fresh Air, are among those coerced by economic conditions at home to serve in harm's way abroad. And they do so, largely at their own risk.
I started at the University of Michigan in the fall of 1965. The spring before I got to Ann Arbor, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organized the first teach-in against the war. At the time, there was still very little public opposition to the war, and little need for the military to resort to an active draft to maintain the then relatively low force levels in Vietnam. But Ann Arbor and the U of M were a center of anti-war fever and it didn't take very long for me to succumb to the virus. In point of fact, focused as I was on what could be learned outside of class, I quickly lost interest in maintaining my student status. I opposed the war and, soon after, began active opposition to the draft.
Even then it was obvious that some companies would profit from the war. President Eisenhower, soon to leave office, had given a speech in 1961 warning the country of the existence of a "military industrial complex" with interests separate from a broader national interest. And, as the Vietnam War heated up and middle-class students enrolled at colleges and universities escaped service, it also became obvious that the brunt of war fighting and dying was falling largely on minorities and the white working class. In that context, maintaining a student deferment became a moral conundrum that troubled many young men who had such deferments, and troubled many working people who saw family members fighting and dying in Vietnam while others went to college.
The obvious solution to those who would prefer to fight wars less encumbered by controversy would be to reduce the flash points, and nothing flashes quite like being forced to leave home to fight and die. That is why there will be no draft. And the absence of a draft is also one of the reasons why obvious elements of economic justice, like a reasonable minimum wage, an adequate supply of affordable housing, and universal health care are not a part of this democracy.
On Monday, Fresh Air host Terry Gross introduced an interview (on-line here) about civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan by quoting a severely injured contractor who said, "It's almost like we are an invisible, discardable army."
This particular contractor got both legs blown off by a roadside bomb and subsequently discovered that he was not entitled to any sort of federal compensation for his loss or for his health care. He had to fight his private insurance company to get a shot at prosthetic legs. I didn't hear all of the interview with reporter T. Christian Miller, so I don't know if the conversation pursued the deeper point that while the US maintains both an all-volunteer army and a private mercenary army, war becomes a profit opportunity that is largely shielded from effective political opposition.
Here we are, involved in two of the longest wars in American history, at a cost to the federal government of over one trillion dollars and climbing, with minimal effective public and Congressional opposition to those wars. The Vietnam War, in its many phases--military advisers and trainers, CIA mercenary armies, the mobilization of a fighting force over 600,000 strong, and secret bombings and incursions in Cambodia and Laos--was longer and killed far more American soldiers than have been killed to date in Iraq and Afghanistan (more information here and here). The Vietnam War also killed more civilians than the current wars have killed so far, but the difference is not worth applauding.
But here's the thing: the Vietnam War was pursued by two presidents in the face of relentlessly increasing public opposition. Though that opposition did not end the war in a timely way, say, 1969 or '70, rather than 1975, active resistance and public disapproval forced both Presidents Johnson and Nixon to conduct portions of the war in secrecy and otherwise compromise war aims. Arguably, public and Congressional opposition is also forcing compromise on President Obama, but it seems more likely that weapons manufacturers and military contractors are currently forcing political compromises that will prolong those wars.
Indeed, the influence of the military-industrial complex might right now be at an all-time high, at least in proportion to the influence of the public and anti-war organizations. In each of the six complete election cycles since 1998, the contributions of corporations in the war business have climbed 10 to 20 percent, with the exception of the 2008 cycle when the increase was
more than 20 percent (go here to explore the ugly truth, note that the 2010 cycle promises to break all previous records). In a 1997 article, "Guns r' Us" in In These Times, a magazine I worked at for two years, writer Martha Honey recounts the many ways that weapons manufacturers seek to increase markets for their products. Ten+ years later, the situation is worse.
Of course, anti-war opposition has limited some of the options of those who would rather pursue the current wars more vigorously. But the practices of maintaining an all-volunteer army, and employing contractors to reduce the direct cost of war, have obvious roots in the lessons that political, military and corporate chiefs learned from the civil unrest and mass opposition that they confronted during the Vietnam War.
First, make sure that large numbers of people do not serve in the front-lines in a manner that is obviously against their will. This lesson was initially applied with the end of active conscription in December 1972. To ensure an adequate supply of volunteers, regular pay for members of the armed forces was increased significantly in 1971. By itself, the pay increase would not have been sufficient, but by the mid-'70s, the economy began to stagnate and the real value of workers pay began to drop; to drop far enough, in fact, that many women not in the workforce at the time, began to work in order to maintain household income. Thus began a cascade of economic changes (including relative reductions in unemployment compensation, financial aid for higher education, cuts in welfare payments and childcare) that has often made enlistment in the all-volunteer army an economically coerced decision. This state of affairs has made it much more difficult for many working people to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the use of private companies providing personnel for security and other non-military services (like transport, food prep and garbage services) has helped to reduce war visibility and exported some of the costs of the war onto the shoulders of those least able to afford it and powerless to do much about it. These are the individuals who work under contract with the Blackwaters and Brown & Roots who pull down tens of millions of dollars annually from the Pentagon. These individuals, like the man quoted at the beginning of Fresh Air, are among those coerced by economic conditions at home to serve in harm's way abroad. And they do so, largely at their own risk.
I started at the University of Michigan in the fall of 1965. The spring before I got to Ann Arbor, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organized the first teach-in against the war. At the time, there was still very little public opposition to the war, and little need for the military to resort to an active draft to maintain the then relatively low force levels in Vietnam. But Ann Arbor and the U of M were a center of anti-war fever and it didn't take very long for me to succumb to the virus. In point of fact, focused as I was on what could be learned outside of class, I quickly lost interest in maintaining my student status. I opposed the war and, soon after, began active opposition to the draft.
Even then it was obvious that some companies would profit from the war. President Eisenhower, soon to leave office, had given a speech in 1961 warning the country of the existence of a "military industrial complex" with interests separate from a broader national interest. And, as the Vietnam War heated up and middle-class students enrolled at colleges and universities escaped service, it also became obvious that the brunt of war fighting and dying was falling largely on minorities and the white working class. In that context, maintaining a student deferment became a moral conundrum that troubled many young men who had such deferments, and troubled many working people who saw family members fighting and dying in Vietnam while others went to college.
The obvious solution to those who would prefer to fight wars less encumbered by controversy would be to reduce the flash points, and nothing flashes quite like being forced to leave home to fight and die. That is why there will be no draft. And the absence of a draft is also one of the reasons why obvious elements of economic justice, like a reasonable minimum wage, an adequate supply of affordable housing, and universal health care are not a part of this democracy.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Economic Justice and Military Spending Cannot Coexist
The Fight We Must Win
Our next door neighbor's adult son has moved in with her. Two years ago, just before it was clear that the economic poop had well and truly hit the fan, he had moved out to a place of his own. Now, having lost his job, he's back. They're being careful with each other right now, as opposed to two years ago when we would hear them arguing almost nightly and it was clear that he had to move on and that they were out of patience with their shared living arrangements. I presume that it is only a matter of time before they begin finding the same old faults with each other.
Another friend has been having difficulties with his pre-teen son who suffers from a variety of emotional disorders and learning disabilities. He lives in a state that has never fully funded the service his son requires, but in the last year those services have been rationed more thoroughly than before and he finds that his family cannot get all the help that his son needs. He is considering moving to another state, but which one is flush with cash and fully funding the array of mental health, educational and social services he is seeking?
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), 26 states that had plugged deficits at the beginning of this fiscal year, have discovered that they haven't plugged enough. New gaps have opened up and new cuts must be made before the end of this fiscal year. Almost all those states and at least a dozen must make further budget cuts in the next fiscal year, as well. (See CBPP's report here).
Given that federal stimulus spending helped many states fill recent deficits, and that there is no new stimulus spending on the horizon, it seems pretty obvious that state spending for health care, education, highways, public transportation, housing and emergency services for the poor and the unemployed will drop, even as the demands increase.
The $787 billion stimulus package passed in February has saved or created 640,000 jobs, CNN reported in October. But the economy has lost 7.3 million jobs since December 2007 (read the Bloomberg.com report here). With $1 trillion+ federal budget deficits, steady right-wing criticism of the first stimulus (second, countin the even more feeble Bush stimulus package), and uncertainty over the cost of health care reform, it will take a great deal of political courage for Congress and the President to propose and pursue further stimulus spending large enough to help.
But there's the rub. At this point in time, in a country with significant unmet social needs that is also fighting two (long) wars, any effective political leadership will have to be courageous. So, assuming the existence of such a quality, I once again offer military spending as the pot of silver (if not gold) to be placed on the table and redistributed according to the real needs of Americans, rather than the needs of empire.
As frequently happens, I cite the ever reliable Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) for some of the facts that best support an argument for cutting military spending. "... the standard economic models that project job loss from efforts to stem global warming also project that the increase in defense spending since 2000 will cost the economy close to 2 million jobs in the long run," Baker wrote in a recent column that appeared on-line at truthout.org.
The calculations Baker references are based on projections covering a 20-year period, so the actual current job losses from the military spending increases since 2000 are certainly lower, in the area, say, of half to three-quarters of a million jobs. But if the US had been saving those jobs over the last seven years, rather than bleeding them away, it would have had the impact of another stimulus bill; and likely a timelier and more effective one.
Unfortunately, President Obama has recently signed a defense spending bill that increases the military budget by about five percent. Though it is the accumulating, down-the-road impact of such spending increases that do the most harm, even a one percent decrease annually in the next three military budgets would have a small, positive and growing impact by 2012 and beyond, providing new stimulus to the domestic economy in the amount of, perhaps, $90 billion (the estimated total of annual one percent cuts, plus three to five percent in avoided annual increases). But the longer-term political impact of such cuts matters more than the immediate social benefits.
Winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will involve serious political fights. Resistance will come from members of Congress with large military bases and large numbers of workers in military production living in their districts. Weapons manufacturers and military contractors already spend huge and corrupting amounts of cash on lobbying and political contributions. But as the costs of empire and war erode our domestic economy and our manufacturing base, there is nothing to be gained by avoiding political fights about the direction of spending and everything to win.
The federal budget picks winners and losers and has been picking the military-industrial complex and corporate interests to win since the 1950s. Beginning the fight to pick new winners now--American workers, the domestic economy, social justice, et al.--is a surer way to reelect Obama and progressive Democrats in 2010 and 2012. Small gains now in cutting military spending will set the stage for bigger fights, larger cuts and, ultimately, peace dividends and economic justice in the years beyond 2012.
Our next door neighbor's adult son has moved in with her. Two years ago, just before it was clear that the economic poop had well and truly hit the fan, he had moved out to a place of his own. Now, having lost his job, he's back. They're being careful with each other right now, as opposed to two years ago when we would hear them arguing almost nightly and it was clear that he had to move on and that they were out of patience with their shared living arrangements. I presume that it is only a matter of time before they begin finding the same old faults with each other.
Another friend has been having difficulties with his pre-teen son who suffers from a variety of emotional disorders and learning disabilities. He lives in a state that has never fully funded the service his son requires, but in the last year those services have been rationed more thoroughly than before and he finds that his family cannot get all the help that his son needs. He is considering moving to another state, but which one is flush with cash and fully funding the array of mental health, educational and social services he is seeking?
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), 26 states that had plugged deficits at the beginning of this fiscal year, have discovered that they haven't plugged enough. New gaps have opened up and new cuts must be made before the end of this fiscal year. Almost all those states and at least a dozen must make further budget cuts in the next fiscal year, as well. (See CBPP's report here).
Given that federal stimulus spending helped many states fill recent deficits, and that there is no new stimulus spending on the horizon, it seems pretty obvious that state spending for health care, education, highways, public transportation, housing and emergency services for the poor and the unemployed will drop, even as the demands increase.
The $787 billion stimulus package passed in February has saved or created 640,000 jobs, CNN reported in October. But the economy has lost 7.3 million jobs since December 2007 (read the Bloomberg.com report here). With $1 trillion+ federal budget deficits, steady right-wing criticism of the first stimulus (second, countin the even more feeble Bush stimulus package), and uncertainty over the cost of health care reform, it will take a great deal of political courage for Congress and the President to propose and pursue further stimulus spending large enough to help.
But there's the rub. At this point in time, in a country with significant unmet social needs that is also fighting two (long) wars, any effective political leadership will have to be courageous. So, assuming the existence of such a quality, I once again offer military spending as the pot of silver (if not gold) to be placed on the table and redistributed according to the real needs of Americans, rather than the needs of empire.
As frequently happens, I cite the ever reliable Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) for some of the facts that best support an argument for cutting military spending. "... the standard economic models that project job loss from efforts to stem global warming also project that the increase in defense spending since 2000 will cost the economy close to 2 million jobs in the long run," Baker wrote in a recent column that appeared on-line at truthout.org.
The calculations Baker references are based on projections covering a 20-year period, so the actual current job losses from the military spending increases since 2000 are certainly lower, in the area, say, of half to three-quarters of a million jobs. But if the US had been saving those jobs over the last seven years, rather than bleeding them away, it would have had the impact of another stimulus bill; and likely a timelier and more effective one.
Unfortunately, President Obama has recently signed a defense spending bill that increases the military budget by about five percent. Though it is the accumulating, down-the-road impact of such spending increases that do the most harm, even a one percent decrease annually in the next three military budgets would have a small, positive and growing impact by 2012 and beyond, providing new stimulus to the domestic economy in the amount of, perhaps, $90 billion (the estimated total of annual one percent cuts, plus three to five percent in avoided annual increases). But the longer-term political impact of such cuts matters more than the immediate social benefits.
Winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will involve serious political fights. Resistance will come from members of Congress with large military bases and large numbers of workers in military production living in their districts. Weapons manufacturers and military contractors already spend huge and corrupting amounts of cash on lobbying and political contributions. But as the costs of empire and war erode our domestic economy and our manufacturing base, there is nothing to be gained by avoiding political fights about the direction of spending and everything to win.
The federal budget picks winners and losers and has been picking the military-industrial complex and corporate interests to win since the 1950s. Beginning the fight to pick new winners now--American workers, the domestic economy, social justice, et al.--is a surer way to reelect Obama and progressive Democrats in 2010 and 2012. Small gains now in cutting military spending will set the stage for bigger fights, larger cuts and, ultimately, peace dividends and economic justice in the years beyond 2012.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Catholic Bishop: I am pro-life
Well, duh
Earlier this week, on a motor trip to the Midwest, we passed through Pittsburgh. There, my mother-in-law's hospitality includes the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which on Wednesday ran an op-ed piece by David A. Zubik, bishop of the Pittsburgh Catholic diocese.
I really don't know if Pittsburgh is a more Catholic place than other eastern or midwestern cities with an industrial past, but because Marrianne's family is Catholic, the city seems to be filled with an awful lot of practicing Catholics, out-of-practice Catholics or definitively ex-Catholics. It followed that Zubik's column, I Am Pro-Life, was a topic of breakfast table discussion, if only briefly.
Marrianne's mom was pretty clear about her own position: Abortion should remain legal and government action should be focussed on reducing teen pregnancy and addressing the social ills (like poverty) that make choosing abortion sometimes seem like the only viable choice for young women. If one could accurately parse the voluminous polling data about abortion, it's likely that Audrey McMullen's position reflects the biggest plurality, if not the majority, of Americans. For all practical purposes, our discussion ended there.
But driving around the Midwest for 1,400 or so miles (our approximate total by the time we get back to D.C.) offers plenty of time for reflection. And I keep thinking about Zubik and wondering how he rationalized writing something so unsurprising, for a Catholic bishop, as "I Am Pro-Life." So far, the only thing I've been able to come up with is this: Zubik is rallying, or at least comforting, the troops.
After all, the recent murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller has provided an opportunity for some pro-choice activists to directly connect the pro-life movement with the extremists who operate on its fringes. One can only assume that some faithful Pittsburgh parishoners have expressed their own doubts and concerns.
Zubik's response is formulaic. Scott Roeder, Tiller's murderer, is a nut-case. And besides that, he hung out with anti-tax and anti-government groups. He is, therefore and quite obviously, not the right sort of pro-lifer. And, anyway, writes Zubik, "pro-life groups were quick to denounce Dr. Tiller's murder and the tragedy that someone would take a life in the name of defending innocent life."
Having carefully defined the pro-life movement to exclude the significant portion that does not condemn Tiller's murder and/or believes the government functions primarily to impose secular values and confiscate property, Zubik moves on. The pro-life movement is based on the "sacredness of life," Zubik says, but was originally marginalized as Catholic and therefore "anti-Catholic prejudice was a card to be played." The pro-life pioneers of the '70s, he seems to be suggesting, displayed uncommon courage through those dark times.
But in a we-are-the-world conclusion, Zubik arrives at the happy news:
Of course, if your neighbor also thinks that the government is trying to take away his gun or force him to drive a hybrid, then he's not what pro-life people look like. And, if he thinks that abortionists get what they deserve, then he's not what pro-life people look like, or so Bishop Zubik tells us.
It is also an inconvenient fact that the latest Pew research study didn't ask people if they were pro-life, so the near majority to which Zubik refers actually includes the portion of the population which thinks that abortion should be more restricted than it is now, but does not believe that it should be made illegal altogether.
Zubik never uses the phrase "pro-choice" in his piece, though given his relaxed understanding of the Pew survey, it would seem to be no stretch at all for him to discover that polling actually shows us that a good portion of the population is both pro-life and pro-choice. In the meantime, the Bishop also tells us that pro-life encompasses "opposition to capital punishment, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, war and violence of any kind. That being the case, I eagerly await his next piece denouncing the use of violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Earlier this week, on a motor trip to the Midwest, we passed through Pittsburgh. There, my mother-in-law's hospitality includes the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which on Wednesday ran an op-ed piece by David A. Zubik, bishop of the Pittsburgh Catholic diocese.
I really don't know if Pittsburgh is a more Catholic place than other eastern or midwestern cities with an industrial past, but because Marrianne's family is Catholic, the city seems to be filled with an awful lot of practicing Catholics, out-of-practice Catholics or definitively ex-Catholics. It followed that Zubik's column, I Am Pro-Life, was a topic of breakfast table discussion, if only briefly.
Marrianne's mom was pretty clear about her own position: Abortion should remain legal and government action should be focussed on reducing teen pregnancy and addressing the social ills (like poverty) that make choosing abortion sometimes seem like the only viable choice for young women. If one could accurately parse the voluminous polling data about abortion, it's likely that Audrey McMullen's position reflects the biggest plurality, if not the majority, of Americans. For all practical purposes, our discussion ended there.
But driving around the Midwest for 1,400 or so miles (our approximate total by the time we get back to D.C.) offers plenty of time for reflection. And I keep thinking about Zubik and wondering how he rationalized writing something so unsurprising, for a Catholic bishop, as "I Am Pro-Life." So far, the only thing I've been able to come up with is this: Zubik is rallying, or at least comforting, the troops.
After all, the recent murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller has provided an opportunity for some pro-choice activists to directly connect the pro-life movement with the extremists who operate on its fringes. One can only assume that some faithful Pittsburgh parishoners have expressed their own doubts and concerns.
Zubik's response is formulaic. Scott Roeder, Tiller's murderer, is a nut-case. And besides that, he hung out with anti-tax and anti-government groups. He is, therefore and quite obviously, not the right sort of pro-lifer. And, anyway, writes Zubik, "pro-life groups were quick to denounce Dr. Tiller's murder and the tragedy that someone would take a life in the name of defending innocent life."
Having carefully defined the pro-life movement to exclude the significant portion that does not condemn Tiller's murder and/or believes the government functions primarily to impose secular values and confiscate property, Zubik moves on. The pro-life movement is based on the "sacredness of life," Zubik says, but was originally marginalized as Catholic and therefore "anti-Catholic prejudice was a card to be played." The pro-life pioneers of the '70s, he seems to be suggesting, displayed uncommon courage through those dark times.
But in a we-are-the-world conclusion, Zubik arrives at the happy news:
The latest Pew research study shows that pro-life Americans make up nearly half the population. They are in every age group, every religion, every political party, every neighborhood, every part of the country, every race and every color.
If you want to know what pro-life people look like, forget the caricatures and cartoonists, the propaganda and the pundits. Just take a look at your neighbor.
Of course, if your neighbor also thinks that the government is trying to take away his gun or force him to drive a hybrid, then he's not what pro-life people look like. And, if he thinks that abortionists get what they deserve, then he's not what pro-life people look like, or so Bishop Zubik tells us.
It is also an inconvenient fact that the latest Pew research study didn't ask people if they were pro-life, so the near majority to which Zubik refers actually includes the portion of the population which thinks that abortion should be more restricted than it is now, but does not believe that it should be made illegal altogether.
Zubik never uses the phrase "pro-choice" in his piece, though given his relaxed understanding of the Pew survey, it would seem to be no stretch at all for him to discover that polling actually shows us that a good portion of the population is both pro-life and pro-choice. In the meantime, the Bishop also tells us that pro-life encompasses "opposition to capital punishment, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, war and violence of any kind. That being the case, I eagerly await his next piece denouncing the use of violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The End of the Affair
Infatuation with Republican Secretary Ends
I should have known it wasn't for real. I'm no James Carville and DOD Secretary Robert Gates is no Mary Matalin. The large passion I felt for Gates when he announced a plan for extensive cuts in previously untouchable weapons programs was real. No Republican with Gates' stature has set himself against the culture of biggering the military budget since Dwight Eisenhower's critique of the military-industrial system. But I should have recognized that what I felt was not love, but the gratitude of a thirsty man staggering up to an affordable bar in an out-of-the-way mirage.
This return to reality is caused, irony of ironies, by the fact that Gates has just recently fired the only general who ever stoked a similar passion in me. General David McKiernan endeared himself to me when reports circulated about a paper he wrote intended to guide US military operations in Afghanistan.
"One tactical approach stands out [in the memo]," wrote Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus, who highlighted an important quote from McKiernan's paper: "Do not clear an area unless GIRoA [Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan] and the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] are able to hold it."
McKiernan made a special effort to clarify the point that military operations in Afghanistan must be guided by the understanding that actions that do not contribute to security, stability and hope in the Afghani countryside will undermine US goals. There may be other recent examples of such prudent thinking by commanders leading US military interventions, but I'm not aware of them.
Like my "cut military spending" mantra, I also favor "US out of everywhere" as a general approach to military policy. Nothing McKiernan wrote changed my mind on that point. But it was refreshing to think that somewhere in the world there was a commander of US military forces who could not be satirized for an "I love the smell of napalm in the morning (Apocalypse, Now)" mindset.
Now, McKiernan's gone. Fired by Gates, who replaced him with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a soldier with a special forces and a secret ops background. Call me a quitter, but I'm ready to bail out now.
Of course, the US has not, in my adult lifetime, fought a war I didn't oppose. Further, it seems increasingly likely that it is no longer possible to fight a war in which one side wins. Obviously, there are always losers in war, but what are the realistic outcomes that would define what it means to win a war?
At this point, I am so over Bob Gates. And I am audacious enough to hope that the Pentagon will one day soon be run by people who don't believe that winning a war is a reasonable goal.
I should have known it wasn't for real. I'm no James Carville and DOD Secretary Robert Gates is no Mary Matalin. The large passion I felt for Gates when he announced a plan for extensive cuts in previously untouchable weapons programs was real. No Republican with Gates' stature has set himself against the culture of biggering the military budget since Dwight Eisenhower's critique of the military-industrial system. But I should have recognized that what I felt was not love, but the gratitude of a thirsty man staggering up to an affordable bar in an out-of-the-way mirage.
This return to reality is caused, irony of ironies, by the fact that Gates has just recently fired the only general who ever stoked a similar passion in me. General David McKiernan endeared himself to me when reports circulated about a paper he wrote intended to guide US military operations in Afghanistan.
"One tactical approach stands out [in the memo]," wrote Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus, who highlighted an important quote from McKiernan's paper: "Do not clear an area unless GIRoA [Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan] and the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] are able to hold it."
McKiernan made a special effort to clarify the point that military operations in Afghanistan must be guided by the understanding that actions that do not contribute to security, stability and hope in the Afghani countryside will undermine US goals. There may be other recent examples of such prudent thinking by commanders leading US military interventions, but I'm not aware of them.
Like my "cut military spending" mantra, I also favor "US out of everywhere" as a general approach to military policy. Nothing McKiernan wrote changed my mind on that point. But it was refreshing to think that somewhere in the world there was a commander of US military forces who could not be satirized for an "I love the smell of napalm in the morning (Apocalypse, Now)" mindset.
Now, McKiernan's gone. Fired by Gates, who replaced him with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a soldier with a special forces and a secret ops background. Call me a quitter, but I'm ready to bail out now.
Of course, the US has not, in my adult lifetime, fought a war I didn't oppose. Further, it seems increasingly likely that it is no longer possible to fight a war in which one side wins. Obviously, there are always losers in war, but what are the realistic outcomes that would define what it means to win a war?
At this point, I am so over Bob Gates. And I am audacious enough to hope that the Pentagon will one day soon be run by people who don't believe that winning a war is a reasonable goal.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Gettysburg and Iraq: The Lesson We Need to Learn
Our little nuclear family just spent a couple of days touring the battlefield at Gettysburg. The reminders are incessant there that the three-day battle was a turning point of the Civil War.
Even more relentless are the detailed stories of the experiences of individual soldiers. Told in pamphlets, in books, on CDs, and on plaques and signs, the stories make clear that the experience of battle during Gettysburg (July 1 to 3, 1863) was predominantly personal and intimate. Perhaps a tiny percentage of the participants had a global perspective on the battle, the war and implications for the future, but the sheer number of intensely personal stories bury the more analytical and detached accounts.
Of course, this is not news. We can, if we want, listen to harrowing stories from Iraq War veterans or, if we dare, from Iraqi civilians who’ve lived through blockades, hi-tech bombings, foreign occupation and their own civil war. But even this would be redundant. I mean no disrespect, but we have heard all of it before.
I cannot say exactly how I came to my beliefs, but I am anti-war to my very core. And when I consume these personal accounts of heroism and devastation, I struggle to find a way to relate to those stories that both honors the sacrifice of individuals and insists that we ought not go that way ever again.
In wrestling with that ambiguity, I can’t help coming to this conclusion: The experience of battle may have very little to do with resorting to war as policy, which is political, quantifiable and subject (or ought to be) to moral appraisal.
Of course, this position demands elaboration, and fierce advocacy, but I’ll put that obligation off for another time and focus, instead, on this further thought: If the experience of battle is not good preparation for the discussion of war as policy, than it might very well be bad preparation, leaving those who have had that experience unprepared for the challenges of making war policy.
This is an inflammatory statement, I know. I apologize. And I certainly don’t mean to privilege the participation of “chickenhawks” in war policy-making, either. But the experience of warriors who live to tell us about war must be that battle is survivable. That is a problem.
After all, if battle is survivable, then wars, regarded as a series of battles, are survivable, too. Even, winnable.
But wars are winnable only when they are considered in narrow contexts. They are winnable in the same way, perhaps, that some particularly dirty industrial processes and commercial products are viable.
By excluding the liabilities, the collateral damage, the ruined lives, the maimed and tortured survivors, the civilian casualties, the poisoned workers, the toxic byproducts, the costs of treatment and reconstruction, the lost opportunities, one might make a positive case for war and dirty industry. But these exclusions remain costs that must be covered. And they are. As socialized, exported, externalized costs they are borne, these costs of war and industry, by the rest of us.
Touring the Gettysburg battlefield exposes one over and over again to stories about soldiers fighting their way in and out of trouble, fighting heroically, fighting selflessly, dying or suffering and surviving without even a fragmentary idea about what was happening one hundred yards away, or to a dear comrade, or would happen even a few hours later. Such an experience means that a participant absorbs the lessons of terror, of fear, of pain, of deprivation, of sudden hope, of vast relief, of comradeship, of loss, of triumph, of exhilaration and of despair in much the same way that people, momentarily overwhelmed, absorb other experiences in life.
They survive them or fall victim to them. They transcend them or they descend into them. They understand or fail to, but at the end of it all they have had an experience of battle that is intimate, human scale and, perhaps, familiar.
What I fear is that those who survive battle, who return with a variety of reflections, always bring with them at least one common message, perhaps implicit; battle is survivable. And though we want the survivors to survive, it may not be socially useful if that is the message their living presence conveys.
What we on this planet should have learned long ago is that war is unthinkable. But we haven’t. We should have learned that war is not an option. But we haven’t. We should have learned that war is an unequivocal assault on our collective humanity. But we haven’t.
I can’t help thinking that part of the reason we have not learned those things is because some of us appear to survive war. And the rest of us are reassured and attach inappropriate meaning to their survival. If that is true, it follows naturally that we sometimes think that war can be just; and think that we have tried everything and that war is the only remaining option.
But after a few millennia worth of war stories, and after acquiring so recently the capacity to assess the true cost of war in lives and treasure and missed opportunity, we ought to rethink. We have that chance now.
The chance to not flinch at the thought, say, that the loss of 4,000 American lives in Iraq may not have a deeper meaning.
We can resist the impulse to attach large meaning to such loss and sacrifice. We can resist the message that these lives were spent to secure our freedoms, or to purchase democracy for others. It is a scandalous message, really, and drains meaning from those deaths.
Instead, we can agree that there has been enough war. We can agree that the meaning of military sacrifice, courage, and lost lives can best be dignified at this moment in history by the determination that we will war no more.
Even more relentless are the detailed stories of the experiences of individual soldiers. Told in pamphlets, in books, on CDs, and on plaques and signs, the stories make clear that the experience of battle during Gettysburg (July 1 to 3, 1863) was predominantly personal and intimate. Perhaps a tiny percentage of the participants had a global perspective on the battle, the war and implications for the future, but the sheer number of intensely personal stories bury the more analytical and detached accounts.
Of course, this is not news. We can, if we want, listen to harrowing stories from Iraq War veterans or, if we dare, from Iraqi civilians who’ve lived through blockades, hi-tech bombings, foreign occupation and their own civil war. But even this would be redundant. I mean no disrespect, but we have heard all of it before.
I cannot say exactly how I came to my beliefs, but I am anti-war to my very core. And when I consume these personal accounts of heroism and devastation, I struggle to find a way to relate to those stories that both honors the sacrifice of individuals and insists that we ought not go that way ever again.
In wrestling with that ambiguity, I can’t help coming to this conclusion: The experience of battle may have very little to do with resorting to war as policy, which is political, quantifiable and subject (or ought to be) to moral appraisal.
Of course, this position demands elaboration, and fierce advocacy, but I’ll put that obligation off for another time and focus, instead, on this further thought: If the experience of battle is not good preparation for the discussion of war as policy, than it might very well be bad preparation, leaving those who have had that experience unprepared for the challenges of making war policy.
This is an inflammatory statement, I know. I apologize. And I certainly don’t mean to privilege the participation of “chickenhawks” in war policy-making, either. But the experience of warriors who live to tell us about war must be that battle is survivable. That is a problem.
After all, if battle is survivable, then wars, regarded as a series of battles, are survivable, too. Even, winnable.
But wars are winnable only when they are considered in narrow contexts. They are winnable in the same way, perhaps, that some particularly dirty industrial processes and commercial products are viable.
By excluding the liabilities, the collateral damage, the ruined lives, the maimed and tortured survivors, the civilian casualties, the poisoned workers, the toxic byproducts, the costs of treatment and reconstruction, the lost opportunities, one might make a positive case for war and dirty industry. But these exclusions remain costs that must be covered. And they are. As socialized, exported, externalized costs they are borne, these costs of war and industry, by the rest of us.
Touring the Gettysburg battlefield exposes one over and over again to stories about soldiers fighting their way in and out of trouble, fighting heroically, fighting selflessly, dying or suffering and surviving without even a fragmentary idea about what was happening one hundred yards away, or to a dear comrade, or would happen even a few hours later. Such an experience means that a participant absorbs the lessons of terror, of fear, of pain, of deprivation, of sudden hope, of vast relief, of comradeship, of loss, of triumph, of exhilaration and of despair in much the same way that people, momentarily overwhelmed, absorb other experiences in life.
They survive them or fall victim to them. They transcend them or they descend into them. They understand or fail to, but at the end of it all they have had an experience of battle that is intimate, human scale and, perhaps, familiar.
What I fear is that those who survive battle, who return with a variety of reflections, always bring with them at least one common message, perhaps implicit; battle is survivable. And though we want the survivors to survive, it may not be socially useful if that is the message their living presence conveys.
What we on this planet should have learned long ago is that war is unthinkable. But we haven’t. We should have learned that war is not an option. But we haven’t. We should have learned that war is an unequivocal assault on our collective humanity. But we haven’t.
I can’t help thinking that part of the reason we have not learned those things is because some of us appear to survive war. And the rest of us are reassured and attach inappropriate meaning to their survival. If that is true, it follows naturally that we sometimes think that war can be just; and think that we have tried everything and that war is the only remaining option.
But after a few millennia worth of war stories, and after acquiring so recently the capacity to assess the true cost of war in lives and treasure and missed opportunity, we ought to rethink. We have that chance now.
The chance to not flinch at the thought, say, that the loss of 4,000 American lives in Iraq may not have a deeper meaning.
We can resist the impulse to attach large meaning to such loss and sacrifice. We can resist the message that these lives were spent to secure our freedoms, or to purchase democracy for others. It is a scandalous message, really, and drains meaning from those deaths.
Instead, we can agree that there has been enough war. We can agree that the meaning of military sacrifice, courage, and lost lives can best be dignified at this moment in history by the determination that we will war no more.
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