Why I Don't Support the Troops


Why I Don’t Support the Troops
Gary

During the anti-war protests of the late 1960s, there was a tendency on the part of young people to lump a lot of establishment players into the same basket.  If you were an elected official, a member of the military, or a policeman – heck, if you were over 30 years old – you were considered to be an enemy of peace.  Although I was never one who chanted “Hey Hey / Who Did You Kill Today,” I participated in rallies at which people did yell that -- and worse -- and it did not particularly bother me.  The only soldiers I came in contact with were those who had joined the protests and had not only concluded that the war was morally wrong and unwinnable, but often expressed a profound revulsion at the deeds they had performed under orders.  I don’t remember anyone suggesting that the people in the armed forces were more to be pitied than vilified.

When we hit the streets in early 1990, as it became clear that President Bush the elder was going to launch what is referred to as the Gulf War, it seemed in many ways to be a reprise of the 60s.  Many of the same players were on hand, many of the signs and rallying cries had been repurposed, and Pete Seeger was still strummin’ on the ol’ banjo.  It was a homecoming of sorts.  But there had been a significant shift in the attitude toward the men (and, increasingly, women) in uniform.   I think the change can be primarily attributed to a greater class consciousness.  Many of us came to view soldiers less as eager, bloodthirsty combatants than as cannon fodder.  While the draft had maintained at least a modicum of equality among the fighting forces, it had become clear that, although service was voluntary, the ranks were filled not only by gung-ho patriotic types seeking to be all they could be, in the words of the army advertisements, but increasingly by people for whom the military was the best of a limited number of bad choices.  The risk of getting killed or fighting a war that was hard to fathom, no less justify, was outweighed by the opportunity, often not available at home, to learn a skill, get an education, and earn respect.  No small things, especially if you are poor.

There was also a strategic (some might say self-serving) element in the tendency to be more supportive of the troops.  The protesters were not only older, and perhaps wiser, but held a standing in society that might be put at risk if they were perceived to be “unpatriotic” or “disruptive.”  Many anti-war activists were less inclined to be hated and marginalized as they had been in the 60s, when people used the word revolution openly, hopefully, and without irony.  Remember, neither the Tea Party, the Swift Boaters, nor Fox News existed in the 1960s.  There was a backlash against the hippies and peaceniks in the 60s, but it was overwhelmed by the zeitgeist.  The energies being poured into the anti-war movement were multiplied by those behind the civil rights, feminist, and sexual revolutions.  In recent years, as war as become a perpetual state, street protests receive scant coverage in the mainstream press, no less in the right wing echo chamber, and much of that energy, cross-fertilization, and public education simply does not take place.

But now, 13 years into the 21st Century, I’ve arrived at another re-calculation.  I do not support the troops.

Let me be clear (as the politicians like to say).  I support almost any individual in any context.  As my friends in the Reevaluation Counseling movement have taught me, most people do their best.  No one fucks up on purpose.  We form our opinions and make our decisions based on our background, orientation (political, sexual, philosophical), and experience.  We honestly believe that what we think and do is right.  So I try to approach any individual with an attempt to understand their thinking in their context.  This is not always easy to do, but it is an effort that can lead, if not to agreement, at least to greater communication and, hopefully, understanding.

But I seldom support people in the aggregate.  People gain confidence in groups, and unfortunately this is true even whether the organizing principle is peace and progress or if it is racism, sexism, or homophobia.  So I regard most groups with a great deal of skepticism, especially if they cause, or condone, a lot of harm.  When someone says "to make an omelet, you've got to break some eggs" I am generally opposed unless I am convinced that the short-term pain truly justifies the long-term gain.  This is no longer the case with war, if it ever was.  For the past half-century, the wars that the United States engages in fights have been immoral, of benefit to no one except the Military Industrial Wall Street machine.  As a result, I cannot support the men and women who are waging the wars.  Whether they are are on the front lines doing the killing or enabling it to happen in some supportive role, they are acting  in my name and I want them to stop.

Without these enlisted people, the gears of the war machine might not grind to a halt – after all, we now have private subcontractors and drones to assure that the killing will continue regardless – but it would certainly be less popular and less effective.  Obviously, a mass exodus from the military would require a massive shift in economic priorities -- we'd have to spend more on job creation and education than on weaponry and spying, for example -- but the alternative is not only perpetual war but a ruined economy, a moral quagmire, and a dying planet (the U.S. military is by far the biggest polluter in the world).  The peace dividend, which we've been promised ever since the end of the Vietnam War, is not just the absence of international hostilities, but a re-setting of priorities.
There's only one way to truly support the troops: bring 'em home.

TPP SCAM


GUEST: Kevin Zeese, co-director of It's Our Economy, organizer of the National Occupation of Washington, and co-host of Clearing the FOG radio show, talks about capitalism in crisis.

Is it only me who is insulted by Obama's constant lying? He preached transparency, and is negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in secret, so that people won't be enraged that he is going back on all his environmental and worker rights promises. 

I think Obama cares less about the truth than any leader we have had in the last few decades. Nixon seems to have lied compulsively, often to get himself out of a jam. But Obama lies with a sort of artistic flair, like he enjoys picking the right words to deceive his audience. Let's not forget that he ran on change, the very thing he was sure he would never deliver. He accurately perceived that the American people were hungry for a leader who actually cared about their issues. He crafted a perfect performance, seemingly without a thought about wether it was true or not. That is what leadership is like in the 21st Century American Empire.

Kevin's work is an inspiration to all those in our society hungry for someone to tell them the truth. We realize full well that in our society of universal deceit, "telling the truth is a revolutionary act." 




Right of the People to alter or to abolish


GUEST: Dr. Andrew Ross, professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University and author of Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City, talks about US debt and the fight for a fair economy. (prerecorded in Rhinebeck)

The subject of debt works nicely into our July 4th program. Much of US debt is illegitimate in that it was foisted on borrowers without any beneficial social outcome. Dr. Ross separated debt taken on for basic human services like education and healthcare from other types of financial obligations. The government should be paying for these services with our tax dollars, instead of bailing out the big banks, cutting corporate taxes to zero, and fighting wars abroad for US businesses. And the failure of our government to protect the people from the predatory corporations results in the type of "debt slavery" we see today.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

How long will we endure a form of government that has so clearly failed its citizens? We don't have the tyranny of the British Empire to free ourselves from this time. More like the military/industrial/Congressional complex that the last truthful president we had warned us about.

The Reality Show

by Howard Winn


Image source: The Village Voice

I find no meaning in popular works about
zombies, human vampires, or extraterrestrial aliens,
nor even the legendary Texan chupacabra –
blood-sucker human flesh eating
monsters of the myths, ancient
and contemporary, even when written
by well-known authors to pander,
or to make the New York Times Best Seller List,
and pay for their next European tour,
not when
we have our very own investment bankers,
our hedge-funders, pyramid schemes,
insider trading, cold-calling predators,
off-shore tax havens, numbered bank accounts,
money-laundering, oligarchs, Russian
and other wise, bought elections
that subvert democracy to boot.
Reality is quite sufficient,
enough to raise the hairs on the back of the neck
in dread and distress.


Most recently Howard Winn had poems and fiction published in The Dalhousie Review, Descant (Canada), Cactus Heart, Main Street Rag, Caduceus, Burning Word,  Pennsylvania Literary Journal. Southern Humanities Review, Cutting Edgz and Borderlands. His B. A. is from Vassar College. His graduate degree is from the Writing Program at Stanford University. His doctoral work was done at New York University. He is a State University of New York faculty member.