Reading Politics

Just my thoughts, Bunk.

I came from a different direction: The notion of one common and well-defined enemy just seemed somehow obsolete, anachronistic. The world does not work like that. Yet, this is only why I intuitively disagreed with the original post, it is not a real arguement.

But perhaps we could try to see the loss of one common enemy (if it is not rather replaced by "terrorism") as an opportunity, the lacking necessity to unite against something as a luxury? Because is this

But outside of a crisis, we are split, divided, bickering. We support a politician one day, then scream about him the next,[...]

not was democracy is all about? Rather than important political topics being overshadowed by seemingly more urgent problems?

'Repent, Harlequin!' said the Ticktockman. 'Get stuffed!' the Harlequin replied, sneering.

Nicely said, wizz.

The notion of one common and well-defined enemy just seemed somehow obsolete, anachronistic. The world does not work like that.

And yet Bush would have us believe that it does. I can't understand how anyone is convinced by that man...

"History is more or less bunk." - Henry Ford

Anyone really interested in this, try reading some noam chomsky. well, yes, people are united by an ememy, but that's only because they are then blind to the rest of or the "ugly side or the country." Politically, the US is VERY conservative and there is a lot of things going on that we don't know. there is also a lot of good things going on. but, especially beacuse of the capitalist bottom-line media outlets, all we hear about is the bad things. violence sells... and no one cares about the scientific leaps. in addition, no news agency want to shake the boat... radical ideas are shunned because the news companies don't want to be blacklisted (a remanence from the red-scare during the cold war). and the rest of the world (especially the middle east) hates the us because we've messed up their world. we've pumped millions and billions into abusive goverments and dictators so they wouldn't fold to the "communist threat." Most of Europe doesn't need an enemy because their country is united because the good that it does for its own people. the us ignors this and simply tries to scare the nation into following.

sorry that is jumbled... but it is nice to see young people taking interest in politics and the truth that is out there

The thing I like about Chomsky is that even though he writes from an anarcho-syndicalist perspective, which is also my own political alignment, he's for the most part fair and always well-documented. His sources are almost invariably noncontroversial too, he's just pointing out stuff any private citizen could look up for themselves.

To contrast, someone like Michael Moore relies on misinformation, omission of information, suspect sources, and varied disingenuous manipulations to persuade his readers. So he engages in the same despicable tactics as the establishment.

Chmosky is carefully kept out of the spotlight because of his scathing indictments of our country. The only thing radical about his worldview as far as I can tell are that he views all humans as equal. He thinks that the citizens of Third World countries should be treated with dignity and respect, and that those who exploit them should be held to account (and beyond that, stripped of their ability to exploit).

I don't see why Chomsky's work that criticizes Israeli militarism or other exploitation in the world is considered controversial. I understand that anarchism isn't mainstream: but consistency and fairness SHOULD be.

Ewige Blumenkraft!

This post was edited by mclaincausey on Jul 12, 2004.

A dissenting opinion:

I'm surprised to read that you think the United States has been unified during (or even because of) the war in Iraq. If you look at polls conducted by the media, Americans' opinions on the war and the president are evenly split down the middle. If Bush wins reelection, it will be by a hair.

There have been heated debates within households across the nation (including mine) about whether or not our country should have gone into Iraq, whether or not we should stay, what we should do now that we're there, and how long we should be there. In my mind, these are very divisive issues. There have been both boycotts against French products and street protests against the war, here in the U.S. There has been much speculation into the president's motives for going to war, and there has also been a deep investigation into whether or not he and his administration were given bad intelligence. As much as this war has sparked patriotism, it has also sparked mistrust for the government.

If you want one easy historical example of how a war vastly divided the United States, take a look at the Vietnam War. How civilians perceived patriotism, government, and war greatly changed after the Vietnam War. Americans are more likely to ask questions, mistrust information being given to them by authorities, and to disagree on political issues with their neighbors, families, and friends, now.

I'd be interested to know what part of the country you are in. Certain regions and towns are more likely to think alike. When you take a look at the country as a nation, we are very divided in our feelings about the war and about our government...and even about what it means to be an American.

I think we are more likely to unite during times of disaster than during times of war. Good examples of this: the 9/11 attacks, the Oklahoma City bombings, Columbine, the California forest fires, the floods in Florida, etc. Just my thoughts.

I think eljefe was referring to the unity brought about by the mutual dislike of Saddam by many people whilst there are many conicting opinions about the war, most people agee that Saddam's a nutter who needed to be stopped, it's just the method they went about it that prompted...debates.

I do agree with everyhing you said though.

-Mel

Look at me! I'm a prostitute robot from the future!

I'd be interested to know what part of the country you are in. Certain regions and towns are more likely to think alike. When you take a look at the country as a nation, we are very divided in our feelings about the war and about our government...and even about what it means to be an American.

Texas.

If you want one easy historical example of how a war vastly divided the United States, take a look at the Vietnam War

Example how it unified: American Revolution, second war with the british, World War I (while there were dissenting opions and anti-war factions, even the anti war, when the war started, backed up the president and kept relatively quiet), World War II, Korean War (though no-on remembers this one), and Desert Storm.

There will always, always, always be dissenting opinions, much like yours, it is the facotr that we look at. Yes, disaster unites better than war, but war unites just as well, as horrible as that sounds. Much to all anti war statements minus those of Iraq and Vietnam are what are called, down here at least, Vocal Minority.

I think we are more likely to unite during times of disaster than during times of war. Good examples of this: the 9/11 attacks, the Oklahoma City bombings, Columbine, the California forest fires, the floods in Florida, etc. Just my thoughts.

Excellent point. But in relatively few cases, disasters have turned the guns on us (our attacks and distrust on the FBI and about 9/11 and how they appreantly "didn't prevent it", like we expect them to be omnipotent and able to see into the future). But it's so minor, I might as well not bring it up.

Fond memories

El jefe,
I understand where you're coming from, and I do think you bring up some very good points about unity and patriotism during times of war pre-Vietnam. But that's just my point: that sort of patriotism and unity -- only occured before the Vietnam War. After the Vietnam War, everything changed and for good. The Vietnam War was what is now referred to as the first "televised war." For the first time, people were seeing American soldiers being killed. The reality of war hit home in a way that it hadn't with previous wars. With World War II and World War II, there were propagandist war films that were played before movies in theaters. They almost made war look glamorous, and they painted our country and our government as benevolent heros. You never saw anyone killed in these films. There were vast campaigns that blanketed the country, telling men to do their duty and women to take up their husbands' responsibilities while they were away (a la the "Rosie the Riveter" campaign.) The media was afraid to question anything our government did, and many misdeeds of government officials were pushed under the rug or ignored by journalists for "the greater good of the country."

The sort of unity and patriotism that was so prevalent during World War I, World War II, and the Korean War was accompanied by a different national mindset...a mindset that no longer exists. People trusted the government, and the media never criticized the moves of politicians. They were afraid there would be anarchy if they dared say something negative about the government.

I disagree with the statement that there has always been a dissenting opinion. Pre-Vietnam...there really wasn't...at least not publicly. People were somewhat brainwashed into a national consensus. It was dangerous to think differently. You were considered a traitor or a Benedict Arnold if you did.

Now, when I say there are dissenting opinions. I'm not just talking about a few here and a few there. I'm talking about statistics that show that 49 percent of our country thinks Bush is doing the wrong thing and that 51 percent think that he's doing the right thing. Those are very dividing statistics, revealing that half of our country does not agree with the opinions of the other half. That's not unity.

Perhaps my perspective on the "unity and patriotism issue" is also different from yours because I am in New York City and you are in Texas. Here, people have spray-painted "Stop Bush" grafitti all over the subways and on sidewalks; there have been MASSIVE anti-war protests that have congested the streets; and people are constantly arguing about our country's politics. Here, a similar opinion on Bush is pretty widespread. This morning, I was in a coffee shop, and someone had wedged a piece of paper onto the wall that said, "Is Bush just not that bright or is he evil?" That pretty much sums up how the vast majority of people here feel. Of course, there are also people here who support the war, but there are actually more that don't. Here the "dissenting opinion" tends to be supporting Bush and the war. As for me, I'm still working out how I feel on all the issues.

I'm originally from a small (largely Republican) town in Pennsylvania. The past few times I've been home, I've talked extensively with people about how they feel about Bush and the war in Iraq. I also spend a good deal of time in Burlington, Vermont (which is largely liberal) because my boyfriend is in graduate school, there. People in Pennsylvania tend to support Bush more than people in Vermont, unsurprisingly. They are two states whose cultural environments cultivate vastly differing perspectives...and those perspectives encompass politics and feelings on Nationalism. I think that more conservative regions of the country (like Pennsylvania and Texas) tend to think more alike than more liberal ones (like New York and Vermont.) Parts of the country may be very patriotic during this war, but I assure you that others are not. For every person who feels patriotic in one place, there is someone who feels ashamed of our country somewhere else. Modern America is a divided one. We are not the same country as we were pre-Vietnam.

This post was edited by Gwenn on Apr 23, 2004.

The peculiarity of the bogeyman isn't exclusive the United States, but is universal in every agrarian society that has surfaced over the past 10 milennia. Every society that ever tread water within this system has had to expand, and in doing so has had to annex the territories of other societies in order to keep expanding, leading invariably to conflict. For more information on agrarian versus natural societies, I recommend reading Daniel Quinn's Ishmael.

The only way that this type of expansion can happen is for the leadership of a society to mobilize the people who will be putting it all on the line for this expansion, yet gaining the least: the pawns. The way to do this is to sell the idea of a bogeyman. Look to any ancient society and you'll find this phenomenon. The following article is paranoid and hard to swallow, but the part about ancient Rome is especially interesting:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/

In our society, which is free by comparison to earlier societies, despite the fact that our freedoms are evaporating, it takes quite a bit of work to get the comparitively more progressive populace behind militarism. Modern society, in the absence of propaganda to the contrary, would prefer to live in peace.

Therefore, there has always been, and there remains, a bogeyman to motivate public support for imperialistic militarism. During WWII, Communists and Jews served as the bogeymen for Germany and Italy. Similar to the bogeyman of terrorism in modern America, Hitler had used some crazy guy's burning Parliament down as an excuse for a never-ending war on terror. (Sound familiar?)

The Japanese had their Bogeymen, coupled with twisted interpretations of bushido, to motivate the tiny island's populace into conquering a huge chunk of Asia. Each of these countries had bogeymen, and each of these countries had mythologies about their superiority and their destiny as conquerers.

In the case of the United States, the unifying theology of state has been Manifest Destiny. This started as a free ticket to do whatever we wanted in the Western Hemisphere and then expanded to include the whole world. We've had this religion of the US being a New Palestine, a promised land of destiny, from the very beginning. It has allowed us to be the exception to the rule, sort of above the law, in the view of much of the citizenry. It has expanded into a faith that the US is a righteous force of good and liberation in the world. Thus we come into the age of the would-be Pax Americana, where we show the world the meaning of peace, by FORCE.

So we've had bogeymen, from the Indians to the redcoats to the Spanish to the Filipinos to the Haitians to the Nicaraguans to the Axis to the Warsaw Pact countries. And once Communism and the exagerrated threat of the Cold War went away, they found that all that intervention to keep right wing dictatorships in power and sending us money had bred a whole lot of hatred for the US all over the world. As our leader puzzled over "why do they hate us?" the new bogeyman became terrorists who for some unexplained reason "hate freedom," rather than terrorists who are desperately striking back against a foe against whom they are hopelessly outmatched militarily.

Am I excusing terrorism? Not at all. But we aren't allowed in our public discourse to look at our own role of engendering the hatred which gives rise to terror. We don't make mistakes, and we're never wrong--this is part of our national theology.

The reason that the tone of poitical dialect has changed in this country is simply that there's more at stake today. Our very society is in danger on so many fundamental levels. War chests are bigger than ever, and we teeter on the brink of a dangerous slide into fascism. We attack countries on the basis on false and fabricated information, and some people suffer and die, and a very few others get richer as a result, some people dissent, and the rest ignorantly cheer the pointless loss of life.

Ewige Blumenkraft!

This post was edited by mclaincausey on Jul 12, 2004.