The Plastic Paladin...(into the militaristic abyss)

[indigobusiness]

Will the United States continue its slide into the militaristic abyss from which no democracy has ever emerged?
By William Marvel

In his visit to the United States during Andrew Jackson's first administration, Alexis de Tocqueville remarked on several providential circumstances that nurtured democracy in the new nation. First came the absence of major wars, which in turn freed us from burdensome taxes and the anti-democratic influence of large armies and imposing generals. “They have nothing to fear from a scourge which is more formidable to republics than all these evils combined,” he wrote, “namely, military glory. It is impossible to deny the inconceivable influence which military glory exercises upon the spirit of a nation.”
snip
For the dedicated militarist, there is no proper time to question war: beforehand, reluctance equals craven appeasement; wartime opposition amounts to treason, and retroactive criticism insults the veterans. War is the first and best answer; and in fascist tradition, those who disagree are invited to keep silent. Such logic affords us the supreme irony of a presidential campaign in which a decorated veteran is vilified, misrepresented, and condemned because he took issue with his war after serving his tour. The record of the contender who actually fought in Vietnam is minutely scrutinized, while the incumbent remains relatively immune from mounting evidence that he never even completed the National Guard duty by which he avoided that war.

Party affiliation generally determines the credence one gives to the slurs against Kerry. Democrats scoff at them as by reflex, while the Bush faithful ignore the retractions, disavowals, and factual contradictions that have discredited the Swift Boat Veterans for “Truth.” Republicans defend the attack because it was John Kerry who first made an issue of his military service, but so did Bob Dole in 1996. Those same Republicans would have exploded in outrage if Democrats had been unscrupulous enough to disparage Dole’s service, but they know that negative campaigning works: in seven of the past ten presidential elections, the victors have been those who most fervently appealed to voters’ worst instincts.

Other than distracting from George Bush’s foreign, domestic, and economic failures, the nitpicking over Kerry’s war record serves mainly to illustrate how thoroughly militaristic a nation ours has become. Soldiers past and present line up behind each candidate, touting them by the weight of the metal they still carry or by the stubbornness of their loyalty to military doctrine; and in a plastic parody of more brutal times, the people are asked to select a champion, rather than a statesman. The current election incidentally revives residual antagonisms from Vietnam, but the real question is whether the United States shall continue its slide into the militaristic abyss from which no democracy has ever emerged.

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/print.php?sid=867&POSTNUKESID=2d82e8ffed65ba8695c0fd279425fe8b

[Fovea]

1. Nonsense

Japan and Germany both emerged from their respective post occupation govts with a strong democracy.

I am sure we will too.

[indigobusiness]

2. Your 'sureness' is not very comforting or convincing.

Neither is your analogy. Japan and Germany have prospered as a result of being demilitarized and becoming staunchly anti-mililitaristic.

Your response is indicative of the penchant of America to willingly rush headlong into a perilous future with eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror.

Vision is woefully lacking in America's leadership and will lead us, surely, into the sort of abyss mentioned in the essay.

[Fovea]

6. Perhaps I should have put a bold tag on

post occupation. These powers became more democratic when the militarists were utterly defeated by an external power.

The defeat aspect was a core part of my message. We are waging war, not just on 'terror', but on nation states with no dog in the Islamist fight. Chavez, for example.

No single power can conquer the world and impose its unilateral will for any length of time. Either through military conflict, trade war, or political strategy, Imperial powers fall. That was the lesson the smart folks in the 20th Century all learned, eventually.

Right now we are at best, a pro forma democracy. I put our chances at not being in a civil war in 2005 at about 50-50.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

3. I think we've always been pretty miltiaristic.

Funny that Toqueville wrote that during the time of Jackson, who was sort of pseudo-caudillo.

We've had ex generals and war heros as President. Jackson is just one example. Militarism is very much a part of US history....maybe not the big Prussian standing army, but alot of militias and such, and warlike senitment was out there from way back.

[phantom power]

4. "there is no proper time to question war:

beforehand, reluctance equals craven appeasement; wartime opposition amounts to treason, and retroactive criticism insults the veterans."

That sure sums up the last couple years.

[H2O Man]

5. Interesting post!

I think that it's similar to what Eisenhower warned about.

In my opinion, human beings are looking to the wrong people for leadership. It's like the most savagely violent among us end up in prison or in politics. Or both.

In numerous places, such as Hosea 10:13-15, and Isaiah 31:1-3, we learn not to rely only upon tanks and missles and armies. Violence begets violence.

I say this not as someone who advocates weakness or victimhood. We live in the real world .... or at least we should try to, if I understand Hosea and Isaiah correctly.

[JohnyCanuck]

7. Welcome to the USSA is how I see it looking right now.

but the real question is whether the United States shall continue its slide into the militaristic abyss from which no democracy has ever emerged.

Just got the latest Tom Engelhardt newsletter:

The Rise of the Homeland Security State
Fortress Big Apple, Revisited
By Nick Turse

Prior to the Republican National Convention, I thought I knew all about the militarization of Manhattan -- the transformation of the island into a "homeland-security state" -- and about New York City as the paradigm for the security culture that increasingly grips American society. After all, I wrote about it in "Fortress Big Apple." It turns out I didn't know the half of it. Only after writing that piece did I discover that the New York Police Department (NYPD) had purchase two experimental sound weapons known as Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) which I had once described in writing about U.S. experimental weapons research in Iraq. I had then termed the deployment of an LRAD here during the convention "improbable" -- yet there it was out on the very same streets I was walking. I also looked out my window and caught sight of the ultimate blending of corporatism and the police-state -- the Fuji blimp -- now emblazoned with a second logo: "NYPD." This spy-in-the-sky, outfitted with the latest in video-surveillance equipment, had been loaned free of charge to the police all week long.

But even finding out about these new high-tech tools of the homeland security-state didn't make things clear to me; nor did the ever-present roar of helicopter rotors as those of us in the streets during the RNC were surveilled from above; or even when Brendan Galligan of the NYPD Aviation Unit bluntly told a reporter from the local ABC TV affiliate: "I'm looking for any kind of crime on the ground. In this case, we're looking for roving mobs of people traveling in unison, that might indicate some sort of problem for the ground troops." "People traveling in unison" a crime? "Ground troops"? I should have fully understood then, but I didn't

<snip>

Police vans with netting over the windows; helmeted riot gear-clad cops; NYPD "paddy wagons"; constant sirens; cops who shoved at us with their night-sticks; armed park police filming with camcorders; radios crackling information to uniformed officers outside almost any subway stop, on street corners, on subway platforms, and on the trains themselves; even those menacing, or sometimes just weary-looking, ultimate conscripts of the homeland security army, the police attack dogs on street patrol, didn't fully hammer home the reality of Fortress Big Apple. What did was the 10' by 20' chain-link pen with razor wire over the top that I found myself in after being arrested for the crime of trying "to change trains," as a Washington Post reporter wrote, after sitting "silently on a subway train going uptown" to "protest deaths in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere."

<snip>

The RNC gave the NYPD (coordinating with the feds) a perfect opportunity to stockpile weapons systems, high-tech equipment, and surveillance devices. It allowed them to refine, perfect, and implement new tactics (someday, perhaps, to be thought of as the "New York model") for use penning in or squelching dissent. It offered them the chance to write up a playbook on how citizens' legal rights and civil liberties may be abridged, constrained, and violated at their discretion. In short, it gave them a free hand to transform New York City into a true homeland security statelet.

www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=1786