Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiMaxims of Peace and War
"The thing we ask ourselves these days is, 'What will the Americans do next?'" This was said in 2004 by a London editor of wide experience; how strange for an American to hear! For, though gently spoken, the words suggested the horror of a Colossus; a feeling evidently shared by allies who knew the United States as a friend in friendlier days.
The Americans. As one might have said, "The Romans," "The Germans." The sentence also served as an unpleasant reminder that the people in a democracy are felt to bear some responsibility for acts their leaders perform in their name.
Kant, in his essay "Perpetual Peace," lays out the maxims of cynical despotism and misjudged realism by which the leaders of great powers and colossi have generally accommodated their hunger for power to the need for an explanation. The maxims are: (1) Fac et excusa. (2) Si fecisti, nega. (3) Divide et impera. Roughly translated: (1) Act now, justify later. (2) If you committed the crime, deny it. (3) Divide and conquer.
Of how many acts of the present administration can it be said that they were guided by one or another of these bad maxims? The invasion of Iraq; the policies of domestic surveillance of millions of citizens, and the torture of unnamed prisoners; the subdivision of Iraq itself into containable warring units based on ethnic and religious loyalty. "They gave us a constitution that set us at each other's throats" -- this sentiment, among Iraqis, has been widely reported by foreign journalists like Patrick Cockburn, and by some Americans; yet it has scarcely penetrated the public understanding of what we are doing in Iraq.
The imperial gamble of Cheney and Bush is that the jolts and shocks of domestic attack, foreign wars, and anti-constitutional government founded on perpetual emergency, will "change the DNA of the American people." (The revealing phrase is General Michael V. Hayden's; he said that he prayed against its happening -- but, oddly, the thought had entered his mind.)
As we enter the final year of the first government of what is intended to be a new regime for America, let us hope this will be the last such year of the last such government. Opposition to the permanent war, on behalf of republican ideals and constitutional principle, has come from certain court decisions, from parts of the intelligence community, and from the large remnant of empirical prudence that still pervades the armed forces. Resistance from the political opposition, and from the press and the mass media, has been less consistent, less coherent, less articulate, less audible. Nobody could have predicted any of this; and in the surprise is encouragement as well as a warning.
If America is to rejoin the world of nations, the help will have to come from institutions outside the executive. From our representatives, but, when they falter, from ordinary people doing the work of conscience against the continued assaults of arbitrary power. That work has barely begun:
Oh the lines are long
And the fighting is strong
And they're breaking down the distance
Between right and wrong.
(--Ring Them Bells, Bob Dylan)
* * *
David Bromwich teaches literature at Yale. He has written on politics and culture for The New Republic, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, and other magazines. He is editor of Edmund Burke's selected writings On Empire, Liberty, And Reform and co-editor of the Yale University Press edition of On Liberty.
Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
12 Comments so far
Show AllIf the current power elite in our country learned anything from communism and facsism, it might be this: the power of the Big Lie.
Lies, both the outright kind, and the kind by omission, are ruining our beautiful nation.
"To bring true democracy to the USA we must start again fresh, with a constitutional convention and a statement of internationalist principles which are consensed upon by all power brokers..It won't happen until we get off our butts and GO TO WORK……it will be a while yet before we see it, but let us keep the vision alive. Be Well."
estebandido you have found the heart of the problem and the way out.
Dunno about the UN/etc., but how about the faculty/Admin/students of Yale act to un-Charter, ban, and Demolish the Skull&Bones-'mausoleum' -- right on their own Campus? [And, maybe-first, properly bury the actual-skulls, within -- like Geronimo's and/or Torrijos'/Saddam's (all Bush-family contributions, just generations-apart)?]
This would be a good/Positive 'start', would it not? [Or would those in the Christian-Right really object to such riddance of Idolatry and feigned Satan-worship amongst its 'heroes', and would the Conservative/'rural'/working-class 'silent-majority' protest the loss of Secret/Elitist-Societies ultimately deciding where their sons&daughters are going to die?]
More well meaning blarney intimating that the system is capable of corrrecting itself without any difficulty or uproar. This country has willingly invented a history of pure fantasy, for over 230 years! Every single war we have been involved in has a separate, opposing, yet parallel history we are carefully instructed to ignore....! the raw imperialism the USA has forced down people's throats since the Mexican land grab of the 1840s is an embarrassment we have never owned up to, any more than the history of the rape and genocide of the native americans....etcetc
We have never expiated our use, never even apologized for, the atomic bombs in Japan....or the fire bombing of Tokyo, Dresden......the herbiciding and carpet bombing of southeast Asia.....the facilitation of the ethnocide in Guatemala......to name just a few....
To bring true democracy to the USA we must start again fresh, with a constitutional convention and a statement of internationalist principles which are consensed upon by all power brokers..It won't happen until we get off our butts and GO TO WORK......it will be a while yet before we see it, but let us keep the vision alive. Be Well.
Malfoyd, I agree but would add an independent, public investigation and prosecution for war crimes by US officials and private contractors.
"...let us hope..."
Hope is no longer an option when both "sides" have agreed to agree and have agreed to maintain their "historic" facades. Good cop Dem v Bad Cop GOP while everything on every level in every category gets worse - stopping that requires more than hope. It requires a total battle from all angles.
What will the Americans do next? Fight the power, or continue to surrender to it?
The author writes, "Resistance from the political opposition, and from the press and the mass media, has been less consistent, less coherent, less articulate, less audible. Nobody could have predicted any of this....."
Sheesh. Resistance from the Democrats and media has been "less consistent?" That must be the understatement of the year. I would think a Yale Lit teacher could find a stronger adjectival phrase there. He could have tried "non-existent," for example.
And it's not so, that nobody could have predicted it. On the contrary, it was completely predictable -- and predicted. What did he think it meant when Bush was allowed to steal the 2000 election, and the media pretended to see no serious crime against democratic rights?
Also, please add:
(5) Blame the victim.
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
Get on the right track. Tell your government to do the right thing:
1. Publicly admit its crime of violating the UN Charter, which prohibits aggression against sovereign states. (Tip: forget about 'winning')
2. Ask the UN, without any US participation, to assemble a peacekeeping force to replace US troops within Iraq to assist toward a political solution to the problems caused by the invasion, and to be fully funded by the US.
3. Ask the UN, again without US participation, to assess war reparations against the US for the illegal invasion of Iraq. (Remember: forget about 'winning')
4. Make a commitment to acquiesce to an international task force charged with eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, and conducting regular inspections to ensure ongoing compliance from all nations.
Children should always admit their mistakes and make amends. So should other people.
(4) Repeal rule by law.
fstahl: Could it be that the corrupt and immature leadership class are the products of the elitist University system that consistently spawns abnormalities?
That or immense corporate sponsorship.
David Bromwich, teacher at Yale, writes: "If America is to rejoin the world of nations, the help will have to come from institutions outside the executive. From our representatives, but, when they falter, from ordinary people doing the work of conscience against the continued assaults of arbitrary power."
Can DB tell us why the Faculties of our great Universities (such as Yale) have not taken a public stand against America's Fascism? Is it really because such "partisanship" would threaten the University's role as an arena for open debate? Does not Fascism pose a greater threat to that role?