Americans Face A Moral Reckoning
YOU HAVE been reading “The Sorrow of War” by Bao Ninh, the classic account of what in Vietnam is called the American war. The title of Bao Ninh’s novel captures the feeling of grief and loss that always comes in the wake of violent conflict. Allowing room for fear, grief, and loss must define the dominant experience in Iraq today, where the suffering caused by this American war mounts inexorably.
But sorrow has also emerged as a note of life in the Unites States lately. Many comparisons are drawn between this nation’s misadventures in Iraq and Vietnam, but what you are most aware of is the return of a clenched feeling in your chest, a knot of distressed sadness that is tied to your country’s reiteration of the tragic error. After the chaotic end of the Vietnam War in 1975, you were like many Americans in thinking with relief that the nation would never know — or cause — such sorrow again.
The sorrow is back. Everywhere you go, friends greet one another with a choked acknowledgment of a nearly unspeakable frustration at what unfolds in Iraq. This seems true whether people oppose the war absolutely, or only on pragmatic terms; whether they want US troops out at once, or over time. Even about those distinctions, little remains to be said. Bush’s contemptuous carelessness, his inner circle’s corrupt enabling, the Pentagon’s dependable launching of folly after folly, the Democrats’ ineffectual kibitzing, even your heartfelt concern for the troops — these subjects have exhausted themselves. The “surge” of the January escalation was preceded by the surge of public anguish that resulted in Republican losses in November. That election was a stirring rejection of the administration’s purposes in Iraq, a rejection promptly seconded by the Iraq Study Group. But so what? Bush’s purposes hold steady, and their poison tide now laps at Iran.
Why should you not be demoralized and depressed? But the sorrow of war goes deeper than the mistaken policies of a stubborn president. Next to Bao Ninh’s book on your shelf stands “The Sorrows of Empire” by Chalmers Johnson. That title suggests how far into the bone of your nation the pins of this problem are sunk. In effect, the disastrous American war in Iraq is the text, while America’s militarized way of being in the world is the context. Armed power at the service of US economic sway has made a putative enemy of a vast population around the globe, and that enemy’s vanguard are the terrorists. Violent opposition to the American agenda increases with each surge from Washington, whatever its character. Both text and context reveal that every dream of empire brings sorrow, obviously so to the victims of imperial violence, but also to the imperial dreamers, whether or not they consciously associate with what is being done in their name.
But the word sorrow implies more than grief and loss. The palpable sadness of a people reluctantly at war can push toward a fuller moral reckoning with the condition of a nation that has made its own economic supremacy an absolute value. To take on the question of an economy advanced with little regard for its sustainability, much less for its justice, implies a move away from the focus on Bush’s venality to a broader responsibility. How do the sorrows of war and empire implicate you?
The simplest truth is that the economic system that so benefits you is steadily eroding democracy by transferring the power to shape the future, both within states and among them, to ever smaller elites. At the same time, wealth multiplies and concentrates itself, while impoverishing more and more human beings. Everything from US oil consumption, to global trade structures, to the iron law of cheap labor, to immigration policies, to the psychology of the gated community, to the gated idea of national sovereignty, to the distractions of celebrity culture — all of this supports what is called the American way of life. Yours. If finally seen to be the source of multiple sorrows at home and abroad, can this way of life prompt a deeper confrontation with its true costs and consequences? You need not reduce social ills to personal morality — or let Bush off the hook for his wholly owned war — to acknowledge the complicity attached to mere citizenship in a war-making, imperial nation. In that case, can you measure your sorrow against the word’s other meaning, which is contrition?
James Carroll’s column appears regularly in the Globe.
Copyright 2007 The Boston Globe
Mr. Carroll: for some time I’ve been trying to put words around just what I felt. Thanks, you did it.
I am reminded of a passage from the Bhagavad Gita:
“It is greedy desire and wrath, born of passion, the great evil, the sum of destruction: this is the enemy of the soul.
All is clouded by desire: as fire by smoke, as a mirror by dust, as an unborn baby by its covering.
Wisdom is clouded by desire, the everpresent enemy of the wise, desire in its innumerable forms, which like a fire cannot find satisfaction.
Desire has found a place in man’s senses and mind and reason. Through these it blinds the soul, after having over-clouded wisdom.
Set thou, therefore, thy senses in harmony, and then slay thou sinful desire, the destroyer of vision and wisdom.
They say that the power of the senses is great. But greater than the senses is the mind. Greater than the mind is Buddhi, reason; and greater than reason is He—the Spirit in man and all.
Know Him therefore who is above reason; and let his peace give you peace. Be a warrior and kill desire, the powerful enemy of the soul.”
“Know Him therefore who is above reason….”
I take it that means Krishna, not Bush. Right?
I am ready to live in a free and peaceful nation that respects the rule of law, domestically and internationally. Oh, and I vote. Anyone with me on this?
The problem with our country is that we don’t have any Statesman. All we have are professional political opportunists in the government and the corporate lobbies who court them. The American people are good and decent and would support an authentic statesman or stateswoman who would stand up for the rights given to all of us, in our Constitution, as citizens of America. The legal framework and the backing of the vast majority of Americans awaits someone with principles and character.
Hoa Binh
Vance,
My reaction exactly!
It seems that we have been willing to let our government deploy our troops to protect corporate economic interests as long as that meant that we could maintain our standard of living. That seemed to be OK until now because we could continue to consume without looking at the national or worldwide consequences. The problem is that the corporations that we have been paying to protect with blood and treasure are no longer contributing to the standard of living of the middle class. The rich are just getting richer and the middle class of America is disappearing. Average Americans are beginning to feel the pain of the policies they have allowed. This article demonstrates our efforts to understand the fundamental issues that have brought us to this point so that we can support true solutions, not just another bandage to self destructive policies. We as a nation need to rethink our position in the world and what our true responsibilities are. Will we continue to stand for our “right” to consume, or will we stand and deliver for economic justice for all?
Carroll articulates the frustrations of all of us who are disgusted with what American society and culture evolved into when we became the top world power following WWII. There was some promise, especially during the 60’s and early 70’s, that the US could be reformed and could become more like the social democratic countries of Europe and the big one to our north in which the society works to the benefit of ordinary citizens and not just the rich. But, no, we drifted in the 70’s, the reformers of the 60’s fell into privatism, and Reagan and Bush senior brought about the worst sort of reactionary restoration and issued in another Gilded Age of excess and corruption. Now we are about to experience the dire fallout from three decades of misdirection. I predict that China will be perceived as the number one world power very soon, but that power will be economic not military. Meanwhile we will continue to waste our human and other treasure in hopeless neocolonial adventures. The big reckoning will be financial because we are a house of cards waiting to tumble.
Sadly, I agree with Carroll and the two responders. We are witnessing the “fall of Rome” predicted by President Eisenhower’s military/industrial machine warning, and carried to conclusion by our modern day Nero who is “fiddling” while Rome burns.
The American public is working two jobs to meet their housing and credit card debt and do not have the time or the expertise to sort it all out as they are hampered by a “showtime” media that knows nothing of investigative reporting.
Our hope is our representation in Congress and this has been very little, indeed. They are owned by the corporations and highly paid interest groups and have been a rubber stamp for a corrupt administration. It will take a renewal of of the principles upon which this country was founded by a great majority of the electorate to turn this tragedy around and inspired intelligent leadership.
I pray this happens for everyone’s children’s and grandchildren’s sakes. We have dealt them a formidable hand.
We have the ability to live in peace.
Getting peace for ourselves by conquering everyone else is stupid and short-sighted.
Getting peace for ourselves by fostering peace on Earth is smart and long-term.
Bush may argue he is fostering peace on earth by using violence to privatize the Midle East, but his argument doesn’t fly with me.
If Bush is so concerned about promoting peace and democracy, then why is he so silent on peace and democracy efforts while being so vocal for war? He would have more credibility if he funded some peace projects once in awhile or if he talked about improving our own democracy to set a positive example.
The truth is, the Bush Administration doesn’t want peace and democracy. They want everything to be ruled according to who has the most money. They don’t want fair markets, they want free markets.
Hey Rune, I vote too and I’m definately with you on this.
“You need not reduce social ills to personal morality — or let Bush off the hook for his wholly owned war — to acknowledge the complicity attached to mere citizenship in a war-making, imperial nation. In that case, can you measure your sorrow against the word’s other meaning, which is contrition?”
I reject complicity and collective guilt for that which I have opposed from the beginning, including U.S. economic policy since the early nineties and the wars of choice foisted off on us by Bush’s lies.
Let me ask you this, those of you who have also opposed U.S. policy as I have, or even were originally deceived and now oppose it; if you accept guilt based on mere citizenship for what was done against your opposition, how can you reconcile punishing those who were/are for what has been done?
It’s like saying we should all feel guilty because Ken Lay deceived everyone and bankrupted Enron merely because we are citizens of the same country. Or that we should all feel contrite and guilty because Randy Cunningham took 2.4 million in bribes.
What I have to wonder is, is Mr. Carroll feeling guilty because he either in private or in public supported the war, and would like all of us to feel guilty because he does?
Lobo Gris
Both Carroll & the posters here have got much of this right. Carroll’s best passage is his last paragraph, where he speaks of wealth becoming ever more concentrated; & the fact that the US consumer lifestyle is a direct cause of misery & impoverishment elsewhere. He is saying, in so many words, that consumerism & capitalism inevitably lead to brutal militarism. (But if he wants to be published by the Boston Globe, he can’t come right out and say that, so he puts it between the lines.)
If it hadn’t been for the last paragraph, I would have criticized Carroll on several counts. For one, because he called the Vietnam War a “tragic error” in the 2nd para. It’s not an “error,” if that word implies aberration. Rather, US militarism (as bakunin pointed out) has been very much the rule since WWII; we’ve been bullying countries ruthlessly ever since. Vietnam & Iraq are merely the best-known examples, but it’s never stopped.
In the 4th para, the phrase “…that enemy’s vanguard are the terrorists” bothered me. Actually, WE are the real “terrorists.” But again, you can’t say that in the Globe. Carroll is probably very aware of this.
In the 5th para, the phrase “…a people reluctantly at war bothered me. Americans are not a people at war. We do send out troops to murder innocent people who in one way or another are obstacles to our consumer lifestyles & corporate profits, but we, the people, are not at all “at war.” Only the military families involved are “at war.” The rest of the country is shopping, watching TV, pursuing other activities deemed “normal” here, & suffering little if any inconvenience.
Americans Face A Moral Reckoning? Bloody reckoning will be closer to point.
Many thanks to Bush sincerity! With idiotic smirk he has unmasked what was hidden behind wide smile of Bill Clinton and lofty words of JFK: the American benevolent Bastion of Democracy turned out to be mere Empire, albeit as different from Roman, Spanish and British Empires as fear of nukes controlled by Global Positioning System is different from fear of Roman legions, Spanish galleons and British Royal Navy. Thus plain spoken Harry mindlessly acquired new Empire on August 6, 1945, which was coalesced by 1947 National Security Act, creating CIA and new peace time standing military with secret budget, not controlled by Congress and responsible to none. Presto, instead of Republic we have the World Command and Control Center now. Only because people of the world were given such an appropriate bogyman as Stalinist Soviet Union, the conception of new Dark Age went almost unnoticed, save for few prescient people like George Orwell. Read 1984 more carefully and one would see crystal clear that undisciplined Russians would not dream to match their American counterparts from Madison Avenue and NSA private information grabbers. Now, with the collapse of Soviet Union and advance of Busheviks, the time of pay back is here to stay with.
And, please do not preach innocence and kindness of American people. We are bargain hunters and if killing of millions of Vietnamese and half a million of Iraqis comes on cheap, then we all for that. It is only when pay back time comes for real we start looking for the Leader, aka Fuehrer. That is the team of Chalmers Johnson trilogy.
So the United States is now contained (besieged) by the rest of the planet, including our once satellites. Hence, we are advancing into military economics with following rationing around the corner. On top of it, the besieging army is besieged by yet another enemy of our own creation: the planet Earth. We are at war with Her starting from the moment that we imagined we can have it all. But we don’t. The main reason being that ‘Survival of the fittest’ is only minor facet of the cooperative nature of Life. Until American people understand that their way of life of unconnected individuals in direct contradiction with cooperative and communitarian nature of Life, they are on collision course with power much greater than they can imagine.
“I reject complicity and collective guilt for that which I have opposed from the beginning, including U.S. economic policy since the early nineties and the wars of choice foisted off on us by Bush’s lies.”
So Lobo, you supported Clinton’s bombing of Belgrade and reducing Serbia to Middle Ages, did not you? Serbia, which withstood Nazi attack in 1941, and thereby gave 20th century become American rather than German?
2 Unethical Robot: I agree with your assessment of the current situation, including Al Gore’s claim on (un)fame. His father made his carrier as union man, while his son participated in undoing his father’s life work. The same had happened in Russia and now is happening in China: amnesiac kids throw away everything their forefathers were shedding their blood for. O yes you are responsible, as I was responsible when Soviets tanks rolled into Prague in 1968 though I have never voted in Soviet election. Albeit the Soviets had by several orders of magnitudes more reasons not to allow the USA to put their bases on Czech soil in 1968 than CIA had reasons to install Shah in Iran in 1953. Pentagon bases were installed anyway but 40 years later in 2006. And I was responsible for the Soviet invasion into Afghanistan in 1979 even if I lived in New York by that time.
So, Lobo, introspect yourself and before pointing your finger toward Bush, glance into mirror.
observer March 26th, 2007 5:17 pm
“So Lobo, you supported Clinton’s bombing of Belgrade and reducing Serbia to Middle Ages, did not you? Serbia, which withstood Nazi attack in 1941, and thereby gave 20th century become American rather than German?”
No in fact I didn’t. Neither did I support the Clinton policy of embargoing arms to only one side of that conflict before he decided to bomb.
Lobo Gris
Why should we be any more exempt from the consequences of our nation’s crimes than the people who are victimized by them are exempt from the consequences of those crimes? Whatever our political position is with respect to our nation’s imperialistic militarism, whoever we voted for, we do not personally experience the suffering that millions have experienced as a result of our government’s decisions.
We are all deluded by notions of “individualism” and “individual moral choice” when the fact is that most of us can do absolutely nothing to stop the crimes our government commits, short of mass refusal to fight in imperial wars or violent uprising. Whether we are politically complicit or not is irrelevant, since we are equally powerless in the face of the inevitable “blowback” in the form of terrorism.
I didn’t vote for these monsters, but I understand that, just as the Vietnamese and Iraqi people meant me no harm and were innocent victims of my government, these innocent people still died as a result of my government’s decisions and actions. I accept that my government has put me in the same position with respect to those who would kill me as a result of what my government has done to them. What goes around comes around, even for “superpowers.”
Mon Mar 26, 12:45 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C - news) said on Monday it will announce results of its cost review by mid-April, amid reports it may cut 15,000 jobs AS SHAREHOLDERS DEMAND BETTER PERFORMANCE AND HIGHER STOCK PRICES.
Mr.Prince (CEO) will have to cut deeply enough to satisfy shareholders like Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who last July told Reuters that “draconian” reductions were needed.
If we’re going to point fingers at greed, let them be pointed in every direction where insatiable greed resides. Consumerism in the U.S. is only one element of this greed. Even greater is the greed we witness from billionaire and multi-millionaire investors who can’t seem to get enough, fast enough.
As a Citizen of the United States I am certainly responsible for the actions of my government, though taking responsibility for anything is not actually something most Americans will accept. I have been embarrassed about my country’s actions since I became an adult many years ago. Now though, Shame is a better description of my state of mind…that and Anger that I must be part of a country that cannot and will not keep it’s agreements, either with it’s own citizens or the rest of the world.
We do seem to have the government we deserve.
John Freeman
O yes you are responsible, as I was responsible when Soviets tanks rolled into Prague in 1968 though I have never voted in Soviet election.
And how is it that you are responsible in what was a country of one party rule? Are you trying to tell me that you had a choice and refused to make it? That politicians were on the ballot that opposed tanks rolling into Prague?
In this country as you well know by now you are free to oppose the actions of your Government, you can participate in protests, write negative articles, organize voters opposed to present policy, and participate in other legal activities opposed to what the Government does. Given that choice how can those who oppose what the Government is doing be as guilty as those who support the Government’s actions? If everyone is guilty regardless why bother?
Lobo Gris
we just need to do the better thing. crime or no crime is for the courts to decide.
Hey folks…we’re getting off topic here. Instead of trying to figure out who is complicite in the acts of our government, past and present, can we get back to what we can do to make our government act in a responsible and moral way?
I’ve given you a choice and an opportunity: http://www.gpln.com/announcingforpresident.htm
Take a stand by defending the Constitution. You do that by voting for what you believe in. It has to start somewhere. Will it start with you?
Via the number of responses to your article in such a short period of time, and, along with my own reaction, I see you have really struck a stream of consciousness among our citizenry. Thank you for your excellent words, so profoundly articulating the sickness I feel, almost physical. It accompanies me throughout the day, every day.
“Empire as a Way of Life” William Appleman Williams
We are formed and weaned on its teat; and although we try not to support it, almost every action we take does so–even typing these lines supports the power companies that control government and media.
There’s only one way to conquer the Empire and that is to root it out from within. Only then will we be able to institute a government that obeys its laws and have business that is responsive to humanity instead of an accountant’s bottom line. This is the lesson of the Gita–you cannot purge only yourself for yourself is immersed in your culture.
Your words really strike home. Over the years I have become increasingly frustrated and depressed by what my country has become. I also have felt anger that my tax dollars were so freely spent to kill and maim innocent people all over the world. I add to that the growing corporate serfdom that daily attempted to dehumanize me in the workplace and last year I hit a tipping point. Through my wife (a filipina) I had been investing in the Philippines for several years, starting two small businesses. We were planning to retire their in 15 years or so. I decided why wait. We sold everything and took our 6 year old daughter and 11 year old cat and moved.
The Philippines is not paradise certainly, it has its own problems. But I have not regretted my decision for one moment. We now live like Filipinos, not Americans. Our home is a revolving door of friends and relatives coming and staying and going. We employ over 20 people in our businesses. My daughter attends a good private school. We are not rich by American standards but we are by my standards.
Most of all, with everything in my wife’s name, I no longer pay taxes to the U.S. as I have no income. I no longer help pay for torture and murder and imperial conquest.
So I understand this article. I felt the emotions so deeply I left to start a new life. I felt so strongly about it I decided I did not want my daughter to grow up American. I am not alone. I have met many Americans here that have done the exact same thing I did, and we know more back in the U.S. that are planning it.
I still love my country, what it stands for, the beauty of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I hope that the fascism that pervades American society will recede. Forgive me for abandoning the cause, for that I sometimes feel guilty, but I had to look out for my own.
One further point about Empire.
Empire ipso facto is evil because it must exploit others and subordinate them to become Empire. Thus, there is NO such thing as a “benevolent” Empire, as so many are wont to call the two Anglo Empires. And make no mistake, the United States was born by Empire and became one immediately after throwing off the yoke of its Imperial mother. Both are evil and the evil resides within each to this day. So in Empire, no one is born without its sin, its stain. Redemtion can only come when Empire is cleansed from the soul. You cannot escape it by moving away, for the torment still resides within.
The question becomes, If the nation’s soul was putrified at its moment of birth and has only become worse, is it possible to exorcise the whole or must it be completely deconstructed and reborn?
SunshinePlus comment:
“We are witnessing the “fall of Rome” predicted by President Eisenhower’s military/industrial machine warning, and carried to conclusion by our modern day Nero who is “fiddling” while Rome burns.”
When Eisenhower prepared his farewell address, he wrote:
“…beware of the military/industrial/congressional complex …”
He was advised to remove “congressional,” which he obviously did. As it turns out those in Congress responsible for financial oversight gave up on complete audits of the Pentagon, for example, a long time ago, as too complicated. Eisenhower knew that there were many little deals going back and forth between our elected officials and the Pentagon–contracts, pork-barrel stuff, kick-backs, etc. Too many pockets got/get lined; too many hands grab(bed) pieces of the pie.
Our government is so serious dishonest, so seriously corrupted now, I wonder, mostly doubt, that it will survive.
And with the absolutely conscienceless, greedy, heartless scoundrels in this administration for too long already, it’s not looking good, unless the “duty” of impeachment finds enough backbones in the House and Senate, and enough backbones, made straight and strong, by awareness, attention to what is happening, and the will and action to do what it takes to demand that these people be removed from office.
But James Carrol is absolutely right. And perhaps who is in office now is a mere reflection of what we as American citizens have become. We supported this excuse of a war because our brains got left at home while we surfed the local malls. Bush even said, “Don’t be afraid. Act Normal. Go shopping.” Gimme, gimme. What’s the latest? Gotta’ have it!
And if you don’t know about it, you might want to Google: the Security and Prosperity Partnership and check all the links, not just the one for the U.S. government site. Very little surprises me now, but at 2 a.m. I came across this PUNCH IN THE STOMACH for America.
Let us look deeply into ourselves and examine our desires. Can we live at the level of need rather than of desire for the shiny, the new, the more, the truly irrelevant things …? Can we?
If we can, we could save a lot of lives and a jewel of a planet that is fast losing its lustre.
Can we? … and before we don’t have a choice?
I too feel and felt great shame for my country and what it has become. Just as the man above wrote, I too left the USA for Vietnam with nothing but 2,000 bucks.
I am now living a life so much better than I did in the USA that I only need to work 25 hours per week. That leaves me with more than enough money fo everything I could desire.
And the people are real. Nobody gives a shit about Anna Nicole or any of that crap. Here, people truly value family, education, and sacrifice.
In the USA I was only just keeping my head above the water. Here, credit cards are rare and when people wants something, they work and save for it. That cuts out all those predatory lenders making folks lives miserable back in the US.
Here, it’s a cash economy. Nobody knows where or on what I spend my money. In the USA, everything leaves an electronic trail.
This is freedom. The USA has become a gulag.
Mr Carroll - this is one of your very best. You’re able to put into words what most of us only feel. Bravo! and so sad for our nation.
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Lobo Gris March 26th, 2007 4:31 pm
“What I have to wonder is, is Mr. Carroll feeling guilty because he either in private or in public supported the war, and would like all of us to feel guilty because he does?”
Finally found a couple of articles from the time period when the war started that indicate that Mr. Carroll did indeed oppose the war from the beginning.
Lobo Gris
Thank heavens for Mr. Carroll and his ability to articulate the horrible feeling I have had ever since 911. Right then I knew that we would be going after the Middle East in a very big, ugly way. And his articulation of the complicity of the populace is absolutely correct as far as I’m concerned. Almost everyone I know in the USA is caught up in the struggle to keep up with the Jones. It is so mindless. And how can there possibly be justice of any sort when people care only for themselves and the immediate gratification of their silliest whim no matter what the cost to other people around the world.
‘As long as I have mine, the rest of the world can go to hell.” That seems to be the way americans think about everything.
Finally, I knew that I could not watch what was going on around me any longer and left the country. Not that moving has relieved all of my anxieties for the world, but at least I’m no longer surrounded by the nauseating self-centeredness that is the american lifestyle.
I really don’t think there is any chance of reforming the US. The disease has progressed too far. The patient is terminal. I just hope that some parts of the world will be able to distance themselves sufficiently to outlast the tsunami of disruption which will sweep the earth when this mega-monster crashes into the sea.
cee miracles
. . continuing with your understood response.. .
It is up to the American people and they are not hungry. . . . yet!
A democracy must have a literate public and we do not.
It iis painful to watch and experience. . .
Cee Miracles:
Please see above.
Lobo Gris: “If everyone is guilty regardless why bother?” That is exactly the point! Everyone is guilty while s/he does not bother enough. Your own statement is case in point. He who still believes that responsibilities starts from voting or writing letters to editor is irresponsible for his or her main duty in life – to understand our world first, and thereby act in a way as to reduced unintended consequences. Yes, I did not vote in Soviet elections. Yes, I even took it as by duties to inform as many people as I could that the “omnipotent” Soviet Union did not have nuclear umbrella as I found to be the case with my own eyes. It was in 1968. At the same time I had listen to Voice of America and Radio Liberty, as multitude of other people did, mesmerized by image of fullness of life beyond Iron Curtain. Little did I know at that time what is surfacing now with the passage of history! Needless to say those CIA agents to whom I volunteered to pass this information to relieve Americans from the fear of Soviet attack were not interested. They knew better that that bogus fear was for public consumption, that the whole ‘fear weapon’ was deliberately designed when I was still a teenager. Or may be they knew not. May be those CIA agents were as duped as I was. I am still ashamed of that episode in my life.
And now let me ask everybody a question: While contemplating the new life form, which inadvertently will grow on the rabble and cesspool left by our great Western Civilization, what do you think that life’s DNA will resemble more? The Manifest Destiny envisioned by slave-owners of Virginia and slave-ship owners of New England and their descendants? Or the little pamphlet called Communist Manifesto, which described Capitalism and its creative destruction power as vividly as it were written to-day. Substitute Marxian word ‘Capitalist’ by ‘Corporation’ and you do not read Chalmers Johnson’s trilogy “Blowback”, “Sorrows of the Empire” and “Nemesis” or John Perkins’ “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” to see how long our current state of affairs was in the making.
It took experience of last 15 years and quite a few American wars for me to complete a full cycle and it was not easy. Neither will it be easy even for such advanced thinkers as contributors to this lovely discussion.
Thank you James Carroll. A timely response to collective ignorance is for individuals to contemplate “strategic education” for global conflict-resolution. I offer what I can to help at MottoCitizens.com.
observer March 27th, 2007 10:39 am
“Lobo Gris: “If everyone is guilty regardless why bother?” That is exactly the point! Everyone is guilty while s/he does not bother enough.”
I’ll just leave it at this. I find it extremely hypocritical for someone who doesn’t even bother to vote to accuse others of not doing enough.
Lobo Gris
I’m pleased that Mr. Carroll has put into written words the feeling I have had for over 4 years now. As a 46 year-old woman, I remember saying to myself, after the end of the Vietnam War, that I was so fortunate to live in a time of un-ending peace. What a fool I was to believe that the beast that is the Military Industrial Complex would sleep eternally.
Speaking of which, I do find it interesting that Mr. Carroll continues to support the Zionist state of Isreal without the acknowledgment of it’s roll in the global Stratego game that is played by the Powers that Be. It would seem that you can’t have it both ways, Mr. Carroll.
Good discussion folks, but I’m getting depressed. What I’m hearing is that I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. That there is no hope. That America is doomed. That I should either move or give up. That all the time and energy I have and am still spending on trying to stop this train of destruction is useless. It’s a little like the discussions I hear about global warming: “It’s too late”, “the problem is too big”, “give up and go to the mall while it is still there”, “move north and way from the ocean”…..So, do we all just give up?
2 Rebel Farmer: Don’t give up. You would not have such a disscussion mere 5 years ago, would you? How many people knew on 9/11, Why do they hate us? The list of change is going on and on. I think it is a good sign. The Empire seems to be mortally wounded and this is good for both America and the rest of the world.
Now these ashes have grown cold, we open the old book.
These oil-stained pages recount the tales of the Fallen,
A frayed empire, words without warmth. The hearth
has ebbed, its gleam and life’s sparks are but memories
against dimming eyes–what cast my mind, what hue my
thoughts as I open the Book of the Fallen
And breathe deep the scent of history?
Listen, then, to these words carried on that breath.
These tales are the tales of us all, again, yet again.
We are history relived and that is all, without end that is all.
Stephen Erickson, GARDENS OF THE MOON
Take just one day, say, December 28, 2006. On this day eleven more US service men’s deaths were honored on the PBS news hour. Eleven men less than twenty-six years of age. Eleven men who will never be fathers, be a part of their family’s lives anymore; who will not share with their brothers, sisters, mothers or fathers birthdays, holidays, family get-togethers, church gatherings, wedding, or…. Wleven men for whom the battle no longer exists in comforting words speaking of glory, of mission, of honor, of country, of duty. For these eleven men, several thousands more of our sons and daughters, and untold lnumbers of Iraqis war has only meant the solitude of death.
On a PBS special regarding an amabush on our troops in Vietnam a retired marine colonel said: “We often hear that men give their lives for their country in time of war. Nothing could be further from the truth. Men have their lives torn from them in time of war.”
So, without end, midnight comes often for many. The deaths of comrades wash away all sense of glory, all the easy platitudes. Walking down the last years the pace for the lsurviving slows and stumbles in a darkness haunted by memories.
Rebel Farmer, Don’t give up! I guess for me, I realize that we are caught up in a historical moment that we really don’t have much control over. I fight, write, call my legislators, utter the prayer of impeachment at least once an hour, but realize that I was born in a country that has become a threat to the world. I can do everything in my power to change things, but recognize that there are some things beyond my control. I have to suffer the consequences of having been born here, just like all those living in countries that we have victimized have to suffer for the accident of where they were born.
Oh no. I am depressing myself. I am actually trying to put the whole mess into some kind of long duree context that is realistic. Yes, there is some guilt attached to our complicity by virtue of living here and therefore benefitting from America’s imperialism overseas and our social system of increasing inequality and injustice. Most of us who write in here would choose to live in ways that minimize the damage they do to those in other countries, to the earth, to the impoverished in this country, to animals, but things are structured in such a way that we don’t have those choices to any significant extent.
I believe the American people are playing stupid. It is the stupidity of the man who steals from his neighbors woodpile to heat his house while wearing a gun. He never wonders why the woodpile is always full or why he puts the gun on to get wood; he is too busy enjoying his warm house.
America has depended upon the theft of others labor and mineral resources for it’s wealth since at least 1970. Food shows up at the supermarket although no US citizen has picked it, packed it or cut meat in a slaughterhouse for the meal. The food is just there.
Gas is at the gas station. Jeans are cheaper than they ever were at WalMart. Nobody wonders at where these things come from for long. The homeless suddenly appeared on our streets and nobody seems to remember a time when we did not have homeless in America.
A thief doesn’t like to think about what happens when he gets caught. America doesn’t really worry about trade imbalances and climate change; we’ve got brand new SUV’s with spinning rims and a massive subwoofer to chase that away.
Several years ago I remarked to an old friend that we are all corrupt. She got indignent and stammered that SHE certainly was not corrupt. She didn’t get it. I’ve watched, as a radical non-conformist all my life, the beginning of the end of the west. I voted in every election, tried to use my professional expertise to affect change from inside the system, and argued with friends and co-workers until I became a pariah. All for naught. What I feel IS sorrow that I was not able to affect change. Why? Because I have children and grandchildren and they don’t have a chance.
Vince, doing the right thing is never “for naught,” but very few individuals can effect radical societal change. We are caught up in an historical moment in which there isn’t time left to build the kind of mass movement that can undo the damage that has been done over hundreds of years of American imperialist militarism. Our direction was charted when we stole a continent from people who were here first through physical and cultural genocide. Bush is just the latest incarnation of that project.
The current period is so in your face, so utterly devoid of even a shred of illusion about what we are about in the world, “bringing democracy to the middle east” nonsense notwithstanding, it is especially demoralizing.
I guess without the ideological pressure of communism to mitigate against some of the worst aspects of capitalism, we are without a meaningful critical alternative vision. That is part of the problem.
Very insightful and to the point James! I agree 100%.
When the pride of a nations economy relies solely upon its ability to crank out war material there can be no end to the amount of contemptuous hatred ultimately heaped upon itself as it flaunts its capacity to intimidate those who dare not kneel before it. An army can do anything but sit on their bayonets. It must use them, or lose them! But, as the size and number of bayonets continue to grow in number, it becomes increasingly difficult to relinquish their profitable production and ultimate use (just witness Bush’s 2008 war chest budget of 624 billion dollars).
As for the, so called, radical element, they are what we reflect, a product from decades of predation, the propping up and support of dictators that support our exploits, until time morphs the exploited into the radicalism of blow-back, a furtive breeding ground, stuck in an endless loop, that gives rise to the rationalization and justification in support of a perpetual war for a perpetual peace.
The author of the Bhagavad-Gita was very insightful in his conclusions. Such contemplation of wisdom and understanding is sorely lacking by all those who command the highest towers of misappropriated force today. We have come a long ways, but we have lost much. The senses of the ego, the material self, are a barrier to the higher self, the super-consciousness. As the myopic eye of institutionalized science plunges the human condition deeper into the elements, teasing the desires of ego, the danger is that the process for extrication of self from the elements becomes exceedingly more difficult. As the perceived urgency requiring defense for the empire of trinkets and baubles grow to ever greater insurmountable proportions of perceived necessity, connections to the higher self of wisdom and understanding atrophy, resulting in chaos without a compass.
Mankind has proven itself incapable and untrustworthy in the pulling down of spiritual abstractions, concretizing them into religious and political dominions, without perverting those abstractions in the hands of human nature. It is like casting the pearls to the swine.
Institutionalized science has not liberated the human condition. If anything, it seeks to ensnare and to enslave ever more. Ground breaking innovative thought is militarized, devouring the patent rights, while the rest are deployed into mechanisms for a metered public dependence. The insidious financial instrument of usury, has transformed the abolishment of slavery into the debauchery of debt slavery.
The religion of rational science is cold and blind, which only promotes a consensus reality, no one gathered into the hallowed halls of academia, tethered to the moneyed interests, is allowed to think outside of the elemental box, the result being, material enlightenment, at the expense of inner blindness.
Enthroned must be Wisdom and Understanding, the two principle pillars under a single crown!
Impeach Bush and his empire of oligarchs!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
Best wishes and hope