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Cultural, Economic and Workforce Structures Help Reinforce U.S. Militarism
With total US military spending now approaching ¾ of a trillion dollars per year - about as much as the rest of the world's countries combined - cutting military spending is becoming an issue of concern for the peace movement and beyond, especially as the president has proposed a three-year freeze on domestic discretionary spending. As much as one might work to reduce military and defense-related spending, there are powerful cultural influences embedded in our society which make if difficult to shift spending to underfunded domestic needs.
High among these influences is the symbiotic interconnection between sports and the armed forces. Many major sports events start with such military displays as a precision flyover of jet fighters, the unfurling of a huge U.S. flag by members of the military services, the flag presentation by a military service color guard, or the singing of the National Anthem by individual or collective service members.
Besides these heavy overlays of military pageantry, sports announcers lavish praise on "Our brave men and women fighting for our freedom overseas." Never do we hear in what ways our freedoms as citizens are being enhanced by our involvement in military conflicts, the rationales for which have become increasingly strained.
It is not true that wars never enhance freedom, as, for example, millions were released from the oppressive control of their conquerors and/or occupiers when the Nazis and the Japanese nation were defeated. Yet, due to intimidation preventing criticism of a nation's war policies and the erosion of civil liberties premised on wartime exigencies, war negatively impacts the freedoms of the warring nation's citizens.
A second powerful cultural influence is the rally around the commander-in-chief motif, a correlative to "Don't change horses in the middle of the stream." This mode of thinking makes it difficult to divest ourselves of leaders who have embroiled the nation in military quagmires through devious, deeply flawed reasoning or even criminal means.
Another variety of groupthink which has become increasingly prevalent in recent history is to label as a hero anyone who serves in a combat zone. I know that when I was in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, such uncritical hero worship was far from the norm. Enlistees were treated with withering scorn by the far more numerous draftees and even the career military questioned the intelligence of those who voluntarily put their very lives in imminent risk.
It has also seemingly become mandatory for anyone interviewing a service member to thank him or her for service to the nation. This cowed deference stems from charges that returning Vietnam War veterans were badly treated by the media. It is a misfortune that military service has seemingly become designated as the only way one can serve the nation.
Surprisingly enough, even our National Anthem fosters the martial spirit among U.S. citizens. In the months after 9/11, whenever the National Anthem was played at a sporting event, the line which drew the most boisterous response was the one about bombs bursting in air.
The militaristic conditioning of our young is being fostered through penetration of military recruitment -- often insidiously hidden -- into our schools; the interactive video game fairs featuring images of military offensive power; and the displays of military hardware, employing spit-polished military personnel helping youngsters climb into tanks and warplane cockpits.
Shifting the focus from the cultural underpinnings of a militaristic society, the structure of the U.S. workforce is skewed toward the protectors versus the producers when the U.S. is measured against the other industrialized nations. In a study published in 1992*, three economists coined the term "garrison economy" -- also described as the cost of keeping people down. The garrison economy encompasses "guard labor" and "threat labor." Guard labor includes the full range of enforcement activities necessary to maintain the peace: workplace supervisors, police, judicial and corrections employees, private security personnel, the armed forces, civilian defense employees, and producers of military and domestic security equipment. Threat labor consists of those who make credible the peril of job dismissal: the unemployed, "discouraged workers" and prisoners.
There were two key findings in the study: 1) the U.S. ratio of one guard or threat laborer for every 2.3 civilian employees not engaged in maintaining order was the highest among the industrialized nations -- it also correlated with the slower rate of economic growth in the U.S.; and 2) there was an inverse relationship between management size and productivity. Thus, the U.S., with 12.1 percent managers, had a productivity growth rate of 0.7 percent, while Japan, with 3.7 percent managers, had a productivity rate of 3.0 percent. Finland, with only 3.0 percent in the managerial ranks, had a productivity growth rate of 3.6 percent.
A key question is: Is a study done nearly two decades ago still valid today? Given the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the subsequent explosive growth of security companies, the ongoing increase in military personnel and mercenary forces, the increase in the U.S. prison population to the highest level ever, and the extremely high levels of discouraged and unemployed workers in today's workforce, all suggest that the ratio of guard and threat workers to civilian workers not engaged in maintaining order may be even higher than it was in the early 1990s.
In today's recession, job creation is perhaps the most urgent priority in our economy. A recent study by University of Massachusetts economists Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier** found, similar to previous research over the last few decades, that public investment in military spending is about the worst way to create jobs, especially good-paying ones, and to stimulate the economy. Instead, investment in clean energy, health care and education would all create more jobs and stimulate more economic activity.
In conclusion, deeply embedded cultural factors make it difficult to significantly reduce the size of the U.S. military establishment. Also, a workforce structure premised so strongly on security fears results in more and more resources are being expended to protect less and less. The time is ripe for a mass movement to challenge these factors and overwhelm militarism with peace and priorities that reflect a new understanding of human security, which would make us safer and strengthen the economy for everyone.
*Samuel Bowles, David M. Gordon and Thomas Weisskopf, "The Boom a Bust," The Nation, February 10, 1992.
** "The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities: An Updated Analysis", Pollin and Garrett-Peltier, commissioned by the Institute for Policy Studies and Women's Action for New Directions, 2009
60 Comments so far
Show AllExcellent, excellent article regarding the continuing idiocy of American militarism. Michael Parenti also covers this same topic in his most valuable and relevant book called SuperPatriotism.
I am currently reading his "Democracy for the Few" right now. I saw "Superpatriotism" listed on the bio page inside the cover. I will have to get that one next. Thank you.
This must go on because "They hate us for our freedom".
As succinct an overview of what's WRONG with the Industrial-Military-Congressional-Media COMPLEX as you'll find ANYWHERE!
War to War, Ashes to Ashes.
Since 2004, I have been being given, in dreams and while awake, names or initials, as well as other kinds of information, of people, who are or were involved in one way or another, often unknowingly, in nefarious and surreptitious activities dating back to and originating out of the Second World War.
Some examples:
Bain. (Dream, 11/12/07)
Joan Knox. (Dream, 11/15/07)
Billy Beach. (Dream, 11/15/07)
Tom Eldridge. (Dream, 11/23/07)
Ubami. (Dream, 11/23/07)
Kermec. (Dream, 12/12/07)
Ralph Duroka. (Dream, 12/13/07)
Clayton. (Dream, 12/18/07)
Dominic Medin. (Dream, 1/4/08)
Keith McQueen. (2/3/08)
L. Benz. (Dream, 2/6/08)
Flatt Pot. (Dream, 2/9/08)
J. Mansfield. (Dream, 2/25/08)
Helen. (Dream, 3/9/08)
Ken Campbell. (Dream, 3/10/08)
And these supposedly despicable people are... who exactly? What did they do? Or are you just channeling a drunken spirit guide? (And who really cares?)
Gary
"Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or the limits of delight."
-- Milan Kundera
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
This is scary stuff. This, more than almost anything else is why America is very probably doomed to economically collapse and violently balkanize pitting coastal population centers against the agricultural heartland.
War, from its origins, is the murders of the sons by the fathers; as in: so few fathers murdering so many sons. ("Son, go over to that village and kill that man's son. Otherwise, don't come back alive."
Russia is prepared to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike?
The era of hot war is upon us.
The image of a hydrogen bomb moments after detonation defines the growing intention of this world's power.
The fathers of this world have the power to stop the wholesale slaughter of their sons.
How about the mothers? I think mothers have traditionally enabled warmaking. If the women would pull a Lysistrada warmaking would come to a big screeching halt.
A broad study of the militarizing influences of the two world wars on American society might be interesting - not that these are the beginning of it or near the only cause, but they were massive enough waves of exposure to likely remain measurable at a distance.
When and where I grew up, in California in the '50's and '60's, male friends casually called each other by our last names. This had an air of friendly mock aggression and camaraderie, and I never gave much thought to the custom or its source until my son asked me about it. He had grown up largely among Hispanic and Asian immigrant cultures, and found the custom perplexing.
Thinking back quickly, I had to conclude that the accents and intonations all bore the unmistakable character of imitated military discourse, even though, in my case, I had strictly imitated the language of imitators, with little understanding of its source.
I could remain so ignorant only because this seemed simply and wholly natural, the only way I knew that males related to each other.
I have to conclude that for all I have tried to broaden perspective over the years, I have little idea the extent to which the military cast of the country during those years still colors and shapes my thoughts and actions.
It makes for a fascinating if partial sort of victory-at-a-distance for the ideas of people like Carl Schmidt and Benito Mussolini as well as militarists much closer at hand to trace how the cast of their ideas carry into the countries that nominally defeat them and into the minds of people who reject their outward ideologies.
Among other things, it buttresses my faith in the efficacy of people like Thoreau, Gandhi, and King, whose ideas, similarly, resonate in the subsequent discourse of those who would be their enemies as well as those who would be their supporters.
If we all find ourselves thrown into this life, as Heidegger put it, we also throw the lives of our direct and indirect descendants.
Apparently one cannot avoid changing the world.
Schools and the workplace institutionalize people with so much rigidity and no room made for questioning things.
Sports that are violent, in which young men are injured, made to suffer, killed.
The goal is to murder ... and get away with it.
The author outlines the factors of nationalist indoctrination that virtually everyone undergoes in the USA.
The pledge of allegiance in school, flag symbology.
Hero worshipping military leaders and presidents who launched brutal imperialist wars in most history texts.
Glorifying militaristic, violent sports (hockey, US football)
Glorifying death in combat and military aggression.
All media reinforcing all of these, TV, magazines, newspapers...
Revering and saluting the militarized president as dictator in chief, who must not be questioned in times of war (at all times)
Fostering the belief that your country is superior and its people more heroic and virtuous. The "other" are not like us, they are inferior and less than human, therefore if they are killed it really does not matter.
The "internal other" (internal out-group) are often scapegoated to mobilize support from the "in-group". In today's USA the internal "Other" are hispanic immigrants and Muslims, and African Americans. Violence against these groups have been increasing in recent years.
This is classic NATIONALISM. Several books have been written with this title. I have one by Peter Alter that is very good.
All too often nationalism leads to imperialism and tyranny, and the USA is no exception.
This is Mafia as run by the military. Based on the success of the entertainment world with Sopranos etc. it stands to reason that is what is accepted by the citizens of what used to be a republic.
What is it like being a boy whose father is a warrior/veteran?
RE: there was an inverse relationship between management size and productivity. Thus, the U.S., with 12.1 percent managers, had a productivity growth rate of 0.7 percent, while Japan, with 3.7 percent managers, had a productivity rate of 3.0 percent. Finland, with only 3.0 percent in the managerial ranks, had a productivity growth rate of 3.6 percent.
I found this very interesting. In the US we have too many managers and this correlates to low productivity. As we move from Japan to Finland, productivity increases with fewer managers. This indicates to me that workers in Finland have a higher degree of control over their workplace, i.e., it's the workers themselves who know best how to improve their productivity. It also shows how powerful the class bias is in the US, companies are willing to be far less productive to protect their managerial class. Which, ironically, seems a bit like the old Soviet Union. It's worth noting that from the US to Finland we move from a society of a highly unequal distribution of wealth to one that is far more equitable - and relating to the article above, from a culture where war and violence are dominant to one where they are not. A more economically just society, is also a less violent society. And the data suggest that it is also more productive. Socialism more productive than capitalism? That'll be a hard pill for US corporate power to swallow. Today, US companies don't increase their profits by becoming more productive but by driving down wages and paying their employees ever less. The dominant ideology, (mis)directs attention to various scapegoats blaming them for the ever decreasing standard of living, keeping us divided and looking to lash out against the "enemy."
One of the reasons we "lost" Vietnam was because of too many damned colonels and majors at the Pentagon micro-managing the war. Oh we would have lost it anyway but maybe with fewer losses, on both sides, without the promotion hungry "middle-management" playing upmanship with real lives.
Any time you get more than five levels between the central manager and the "lowest" worker/participant you have problems. Basic organizational theory. Bureaucratic organizations are like the Market, they need to be regulated to counter certain conditions from occurring, including this fat in middle-management.
The more you can trust the "workforce" the less need is there for managers -- which is why so many managers are such jerks, they don't want "their people" to show them up as unnecessary. But the way things are set up now there is no real incentive (other than earning a living wage -- which actually is a poor motivator) for labor to give their all and increase productivity.
Gary
"It was the mystical dogma of Bentham and Adam Smith and the rest, that some of the worst of human passions would turn out to be all for the best. It was the mysterious doctrine that selfishness would do the work of unselfishness."
-- G(ilbert) K(eith) Chesterton
AS John Kenneth Galbraith said - in answer to the Dogma of Capitalism as the "most excellent way of social order"....:
"CAPITALISM IS the Modern way of playing a very, very old Game: finding the Moral justification for Greed".
no matter how one slices or dices it - that is exactly what it is.
or as Albert Einstein said:
"Capitalism has a Natural Tendency to accumulate wealth and power into a few PRIVATE hands at the expense of society that provides the Private hands their very existence...and collectively produces the wealth that that private hands DENY to the Workers.....it does this not necessarily through Physical Force ..but by unconsciously or subconsciously making the people COMPLY through the rules created by Capitalism....
I am ABSOLUTELY convinced that this is the ROOT of THE EVIL....
the ONLY solution is Socialism".
In my town we have a grand summer parade. Vets and Young Marines walk by one after another, and parade watchers stir their obese bodies from their lawn chairs to stand in admiration for the men to whom "we owe our freedom." Kind of comical in a way, though it reinforces the idea that military service is always honorable.
And it's also comical how guys get these military license plates: Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I, and display those on their vehicles. Was that really the high point of their lives? More important than, say, raising a family honorably, pursuing a career--hell, going fishing on Sundays? A lot of vets I know don't display their service in any way--for personal reasons, because they have doubts they made the world better, or because they recognize the military was one episode in their lives and was insignificant compared to other accomplishments they made. I bet a fair number of them scorn the patriotism so vigorously promoted by some of their comrades.
drosera
Count me, as a Vietnam veteran, in as one who looks upon his military service as not only insignificant but also, since I contributed to the deaths of many innocent Vietnamese people, something which should be viewed as being less than honorable and less than worthy of respect. I remember about four or five years ago running into a pro-war Vietnam veteran at the local post office. While attempting to justify America's invasion of Iraq, he added that he was a Vietnam veteran. He also pointed to his truck which displayed a Vietnam veteran bumper sticker. I somewhat regretted not asking him what he thought being a Vietnam veteran was supposed to mean. It would seem that to him, to make that statement was to immediately convey respect and awe from the listener. It never appeared to dawn on him that bombing innocent Vietnamese civilians, spraying them with Agent Orange, and brutalizing, terrorizing and harassing them was not what the United States should have been doing to those people and did not merit awe and respect.
I think that those who had been in the military, as well as those who are presently in the military today, should ask themselves the question that Ralph Nader's father asked young Ralph when he was in school and that was:
"Did you learn to believe or did you learn to think"?
I know someone that also is a vietnam vet. and when I asked him what he thinks of "things" today as well as his own years of serving..he said it in simple words:
"WE were USED".
We have a Vets for Peace group in town and they really confuse local patriots as they oppose US operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere. People are so ready to attack someone who never joined the military, questioning their courage and their manhood, but they tend to shut up when a vet says something sensible about the futility--not to mention the inhumanity--of war. Our local history museum has had two exhibits honoring vets in the last four years, but not a single mention of CO's or those who opposed US involvement in war. It is another subtle way to get the message across: participating in war merits praise; advocating peace is treasonous.
drosera
Very well said.
This says it all -- or a good part of it, any way...
http://www.ilike.com/artist/Eric+Bogle/track/And+The+Band+Played+Waltzing+Matilda
Nicely written. Depersonalization as referred to by Bardamu (poster) is a key part of the culture. Derogation of the typically feminine traits of empathy, compassion, communion with others and belonging are part of military culture too. The suppression of joy and happiness along with any guilt or sense of defeat, are also traits cultivated in 'warrior' cultures.In addition, the praise of aggression and relentless pursuit until your 'enemy' is killed is another cultivated value. Steeling oneself against the normal self-loathing over killing other human beings requires mind training, so suppression of disgust must be a part of military culture too.
How does the use of torture and surveillance fit into this picture. Are these meant to terrorize the threat labor into submission?
In the 2004 Presidential election, John Kerry said something to affect that if the education system in the USA was not improved, the less than educated was destined to be in the military.
Kerry got a lot of slack for that comment. I still can't figure out why. Even during the early stages of Vietnam, when a lot of highschoolers were still waving the flag, the talk amoung all the kids was that you only join the military if you can't do anything else, and you needed someone to show you the basics of how to live. That assessment may be harse, but it is more true today than back then.
When NCLB encouraged military recruiter outposts outside of high schools, it seemed apparent that the military was desperately trying to recruit any highschooler who just couldn't do anything else in life and get them before they could have a cogent discussion of the illegal war in Iraq with anyone in the know.
The US has never been attacked(warlike, not criminal like e.g, 9/11) and therefor in need of a military offensive buildup since Pearl Harbor. Korea was Mao's trick to get to see what the US would and could do.
China's military budget is $4 billion or $70 billion, depending if you believe China or the US, and they have twice the number of military personel. Something is wrong with this picture.
What I find ironic about the WarMongering USA is this:
that when it goes to war - it is Soooooooooooooo Sensitive , Sooooooo Precious , about Troop and armament losses....while at the same time talking loudly and often about how "careful" it is to "avoid civilian casualties" SIMULTANEOUS to actually contradicting its own claims about avoiding civilian casualties in order to , say, take out a SINGLE enemy.
it has the stomach to INITIATE wars or create conditions for war - goes right in (such as in iraq etc.) -- and in the intent to prevent casualties among its OWN troops whose lives are supposedly SO precious - and more precious than the casualties its wars inflict on people in other regions in THEIR own countries that the USA has invaded -- it brings about its HUGE armies and battalions and regiments and armaments to "protect our troops" .
but when it KNOWs that the US casualties are decidedly going to be far, far greater than the propaganda and general public's tolerance will allow for - it NEVER goes beyond bluster or threats.
for example: i remember quite well in the 1960's growing up the world news then...
when MAO ZEDONG heard rumors or suggestions that the US Leadership in the 1960's could contemplate a war with china, he simply quipped:
"WE can afford to Lose 200 million people....is the USA prepared to do the same?"
all talk about "containing china" through war stopped....
NATO/USA forces in afghanistan are supposedly at at least 20-1 against the taliban....
imagine a 20-20 parity - MINUS still the much more advanced and bigger US guns....
americans , some in their moments of hubris would say that countries such as vietnam or afghanistan or iraq - are so "barbaric and have no concern for life" because "they throw people in the battle field" like tree leaves compared to how PRECIOUSLY the americans WRAP their soldiers with such magnificent, gigantic war machines , ordnance, high-tech suits, etc....
in order to do exactly what?
CAUSE great harm and destruction and death in countries the USA has no business being IN trying to control them and meddle in their affairs.
one might as well say that the Wall Street Bankers - just a BLIP in the population of the world and the USA - who cause so much harm outside their own suits are SO "CIVILIZED" because THEY don't sacrifice THEMSELVES or their loved ones in such GREAT quantities as those that they VICTIMIZE across the nation and the world with their deeds.
and yet - the USA machinery of war or the population can't "understand" WHY the people in their own countries, like in vietman - would go all out -- to actually DIE in the hundreds of thousands for their sovereignty because a FOREIGNER came in , invaded, occupied and tells them what to do ...while calling them "barbaric" for doing the things that their lesser technological capabilities push them to do, which is engage the Foreigner - the USA/NATO - in ways that entail great losses on the side of the natives.
what a queer, strange kind of mentality.
the thing is - if one were to study cultures, both historically and today...while of course there have always been forms of militarism, warrior-mentality - whether it's the older tribes or nations...they were/are ...more often the result of a hierarchy of civilizations developing a certain form of authoritarianism - ranging from relatively more benign to more extreme as a way to solidify a society towards a sense of unity . but often - especially as nations developed larger beyond the tribal limitations ...the general population tended to be less infused with the militaristic mindset- making the "military" or army - quite separate as an entity.
in the USA - it infuses the very culture itself - which is why it is almost indistinguishable between daily life - sports, entertainment, the corporate structure, the constant obsession with "security and safety".
i've been interested in geography, history, cultures all my life...
i really do not think i've witnessed such an almost rabid love-affair with the CONCEPT of militarism itself as with the USA.
even a cursory examination of photographs of what are the most prominent or UBIQUITOUS things in cultures (irrespective of nation's tendency to have large monuments to wars, upheavals and great changes. etc)
shows that the USA - beyond, far beyond all counries, has such a love affair with what
General Smedley Butler calls :
"OUR SUPERnationalistic" capitalism -- as its patriotism, expressed in its militancy for that "americanISM".
it goes beyond the more common
"pride of culture or history" displayed , say , by China, Russia, Germany Iran, etc....
any of which have MORe than just the MILITARISM in which to "take pride in" ....
these countries and cultures , as well as many others have -- beyond the militarism --
GREAT and DISTINCTLY UNIQUE and even original and even separate achievements in CULTURE, MUSIC, ARTS, LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY< etc...of which militarism is only ONE - but NOT necessarily the most prominent or influential or overriding.
in the US the most OVERRIDING "distinction" IS its Militarism.
as example:
there is for example, likely NO american counterpart in the world of music that can reach the heights of artistry that the great German composers showed ..JS bach, Wagner, Beethoven, and others like Mozart....
or with the great italian and dutch and flemish painters ...
or the great novelists and writers with superb bodies of work that are not limited to just a few works -- but ENTIRE lifetimes and eras of great artistic and intellectual achievements vying with one another....
it offers instead as AMONG its "highest achievemtns" what really amounts to "popular culture" that often does not require great artistic or intellectual achievement - and with it accompanies the sense of militant national pride that isn't QUITE justified by the artistic achievements...simply that "it's AMERICAN"...
rather than that "it's a truly GREAT work of LITERATURE" or "music" or so and so.
and in place of this, almost, is the pride in MILITARISM and the idea of Conquest by military means. by physical force, by BIGNESS of force.
maybe that's also reflected in the idea of american "war" of "shock and awe".
in sheer numbers -- without having to rehash the huge american military budget ....
just the fact that the USA can tolerate or even acquire or encourage over the generations an ARMY of over 2 million soldiers - NOT to mention the growing PRIVATE army system - all devoted to "security" and warmaking -
OUT OF 300 million inhabitants....
shows that even in comparison with other biggest army - that of CHina's at also around 2 million soldiers - OUT OF 1.3 BILLION people.....
tells you the country that has as its PRIORITY - above all else - MILITARISM...far far more than any country on earth.
that alone, NOT what people in any country think of ANOTHER or OTHER countries, tells you that the USA is in fact
as i have always called it:
a WAR MAKING and MILITARISTIC culture right down to its very roots. it has TWO gods:
MONEY , and WAR.
You make an interesting point about culture, teddy, and the fact that perhaps the foremost cultural distinction of this country is indeed its militarism. I agree with your assessment, but would like to nuance it a little. As far as the arts are concerned, I think the one exception in your observation is literature. In the mere 200+ years of its existence, the US has turned out some great writers very much on a par with the European countries: Melville, Poe, Walt Whitman, Thoreau, Emerson, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wm Faulkner et. al. An interesting footnote to this observation is how many of these great writers felt compelled to leave the country, precisely because of the cultural emptiness: James, Eliot, Pound, Hemingway and others, or, among painters, Whistler. Others in this list (Melville, Poe, Dickinson) went relatively unappreciated by the literary establishment during their lifetimes.
It should also be pointed out that the US's domination of world literature (or, perhaps more accurately, world publishing) and art since World War II has more to do with its politico-military domination of the globe, and the subsequent decline of the European cultures, than with any actual improvement in the quality of its cultural products. There was even a postwar CIA program (covered in a relatively recent UK book) to promote American "high" culture for nationalist, political, and ideological reasons. Critics like Clement Greenberg knowingly colluded with this plan, which favored American abstractionism over figurativism, as the latter tended to lend itself to progressivist subject matter, as, for example, in the work of the Mexican Diego Rivera or the postwar Italian Neorealists in painting, film and literature. CIA even funded the founding and management of The Paris Review, long a trend-setting litmag for the East Coast establishment.
I am convinced that when the cultural history of the "great American century" is written with the objectivity of distance, it will be found that much of what the US cultural establishment gave to the world in the 20th century (Hollywood, consumerism, TV, conceptualism, blockbuster authors) is hollow, overrated, and spiritually and intellectually vapid. And what will emerge as most significant, most original, and most influential for the rest of the world, will be the products of the "unofficial" and oftentimes "oppositional" culture of the country: African-American culture: blues, jazz, Gospel, soul food, slang; Beat culture in its many manifestations: poetry, fiction, customs; hippy culture and its many outgrowths: rock music, pacifism, environmentalism, organic food, alternative energy, etc.
The fact that all the forms and trappings of these countercultures have long been absorbed and co-opted by the mainstream means nothing. In the process they have been stripped of meaning and exploited for economic and deviously political ends, while the heart of their spirit was squashed without pity. Only when the essence, and message, of these alternative cultures comes to inform the culture as a whole will there be any hope for some sort of enlightenment. But for this to happen, the ruling structures have to be toppled and overturned, and there has to be a transformation, a revolution, at the very foundations of the society, beginning with education.
To blame the existence of the military-industrial complex, unending wars, etc. on the cultural aspects of this capitalist society, is a typical "progressive" distraction. The "cultural" aspects are symptoms, not causes.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union 1991 approximately, the U.S. ruling class has found itself the world's military hegemon and super-power. More than twice the military power of the entire rest of the planet combined.
The neo-cons who created the Project for the New American Century, realized this was a unique historical point to impose the economic, political will upon the rest of the world if necessary. If the U.S. capitalist economy is unable to compete in the global "marketplace", it can still impose the interests of U.S. capitalism via militarism.
The economy of the U.S. has been declining for the last 30 years and has now collapsed. Globalization has allowed U.S. capitalists to move millions of jobs overseas. The economy has been in long decline as far as filling the needs of working people.
The trillion dollar bailouts are all to prop up failed capitalism but only helps the top 5 percent. Public health, public education, all the state and local public infrastructure is being destroyed because the wealthiest do not want to pay any taxes. The taxes on the top 400 families has dropped from 33 percent to 16 percent in the last decade. This has happened because of the complete corporate corruption of the entire political process. Huge campaign contributions, making corporations with rights of "personhood", control of mass media including NPR and PBS, means that corporate and capitalist interests are constantly imposing their capitalist values upon every single human transaction. To be human is to be a profitable consumer. All other impoverished and unprofitable humans are to be finally eliminated.
Capitalism has so defined what it is to be human, re-defined human needs to equate to only that which is profiable, and is, in fact, waging a global war of genocide against "unprofitable" humanity. Humanity that detracts or opposes the maximization of profit is to be marginalized, allowed to become impoverished. Capitalism, by not being taxed, thus allows the health of the majority to decline until illness brings death. War for profit, power, is the most extremet expression of gangster Capitalism run amok.
The absolute refusal of "progressives", usually upper "Middle-Class" college graduates with an increasingly desperate personal interest in maintaining their own personal economic status quo, refuse to link all the many crises humanity faces to the fundamental reality that capitalism "as we know it" is the root cause of the human calamities we now face.
Still functioning of global capitalism (the banks, the entire energy industry (oil, gas, coal, nuclear)), etc. should be SOCIALIZED. That is NATIONALIZED and converted to become public utilities under democratic control of the working people who make the utility function, operated for social needs of all.
"Progressive" politics, perspectives, agendas are completely bankrupt and should be considered even the die-hard defenders of the status quo. The hypocritical "progressive" lament about the disappearance of the "left" is due to these facts: "Progressives" are not opposed to capitalism per se. (2) "Progressive" media routinely censors out anti-capitalist socialist perspectives (such as Pacifica Radio, CD, The Nation, etc. (3) To be "left" today must mean minimally to be "anti-capitalist" and to support a transition away from capitalism towards a socialist economy. A socialist economy is geared to filling the economic needs of the vast majority (society), and not dedicated to the greed and profit of a tiny minority.
The Democratic Party under Obama is a totally corrupt political party, now under full control of corporate capitalists in its refusal to end the wars, stop global warming (promotes "cap and trade"), and today refuses to even discuss "single payer" Medicare-for-All legislation. Instead all that is allowed is "Health Care Reform" that expands corportate profit.
Read the daily World Socialist Web Party http://www.wsws.org, especially today's issue Feb. 27, 2010 for on-going commentary and analysis from an anti-capitalist socialist perspective.
great comments. i agree.
Yes nationalize the banks, liberate the wealth
MORE POWER TO THE GOVERNMENT.
Absolute power never corrupted anyone...wait hold up.
Its not about nationalizing anything, its about redefining the role of money in our society. Theres no reason a bunch of us can't establish a farming commune somewhere, live off the land, sell the excess crop to the town for supplies.
Avoid taxes by calling this a religious institution, the key thing is to keep it small.
Keep it between people, or you can keep yelling your Marxist views.
Don't forget all the masses who have starved to death under "Communist" governments.
<<<<<<< 1) the U.S. ratio of one guard or threat laborer for every 2.3 civilian employees not engaged in maintaining order was the highest among the industrialized nations >>>>>>
Gee, you would think so? Isn't this commonsensical? When you want to make sure a small group of people gets a lot more money than they deserve, and then make sure a great number of people gets a lot less money than they rightfullly deserve, itsn't this how you do it?
You must have a lot of prisons, a lot of law and order workers (from lawyers to policemen, to guards, to "managers"), and therefore proportionately fewer workers who are engaged in actual production
Isn't this what capitalism is all about? Even the "progressives" know this is what the world should be. And you don't?
Well stated and accurate in my view.
Exactly why I can't stomach going to sporting events anymore. This disgusting militarism and uber-patriotism has pushed its tentacles everywhere in our culture, but nowhere has it taken such a large and ever-present role as it does at sporting events, especially because of the sheer mass of numbers who take part in it. It is simply too overwhelming for me to take.
And as various posters have mentioned on this site (Sioux Rose the foremost among them), the connection between sports and warfare goes much deeper than just the outward celebrations and show. The whole metaphorical aspect of warfare threads itself throughout sports, with its "us vs. them" mentality and the celebration of a "winner" over a less-stronger, less-strategic "loser".
And before Osbourne, there was his once-rival Bill McCartney, who started the whole Promise Keeper thing.
Hi Redwriteman..
I think I and I would think many others would understand your analysis of showing that contact sports do NOT necessarily have to lead towards a militaristic culture.
imo, this is reasonable in that - where we, as a civilization , regardless of the cultural variations, have both the aggressive and less aggressive or more "cooperative" instincts that, although not necessarily unique to the human species, are part of what happens to be our common challenge to try to BALANCE in order to thrive -- and hopefully, thrive in a way that is beneficial to each and all of us in our societies and species.
i think it's also reasonable to understand contact sports as some kind of idealisation of "competition" , as well as a way to "let off steam" that would otherwise be turned by society into actual wars.
I think one of the great problems in the American mentality or cultural norm is that
the "idealization" through contact sports does not REMAIN there - "in a controlled" environment, so to say - but , as you put so well, corporatised and in that way, because of the corporate culture that is the USA , in reality has become both a substitute as WELL AS a PREPARATION for actual wars - for actually REALIZING war and "competing" in a way that is warlike in actuality.
for example:
IN IRAN -- there is a very old "contact sport" - a kind of very intense wrestling - akin almost to the ancient gReek wrestling - where the sportsmen - beyond their daily obligations (w0rk, family, etc) - train extremely hard to be great wrestlers...but it is also a brutal sport..
however - we all know that IRAN has for the last 500 or more years has NOT mobilized an army - big as theirs is - to actually attack another country...even if there are the usual skirmishes between neighbors. they always found a way to AVOID all out war -- except during that one between Iraq and iran - where the USA connived and "egged on" IRAQ to cross the border - resulting in over a million deaths to both camps.
SIMILARLY - in the USA - there is WRESTLING, contact sports, BUT THESE become a way of EGGING ON the american culture TO embrace the WAGING of war ...year after year after year - rather than to AVOID IT...as for example Iran has done DESPITE iran having all the reasons in the world (including the CIA overthrow of Mossadegh...internecine rivalries, iraq/sunni muslim contradictions against iran's highly nationalist Shiitism) to have waged war MANY times over through the centuries....while also - unlike the USA being in constant danger from rival countries right across its own borders...which the USA HAS NO similar reason -- yet engages in WAR in regions FAR from itself.
these, imo, are really big, distinct differences.
MUCH of the conflicts in regions of the world are between NEIGHBORING countries - where the differences of opinion and world-views or order are almost inevitable in producing skirmishes that ,,,, sooner or later, the regional actors themselves FIND SOME kind of "stalemate" - no matter how delicate ...but nonetheless their OWN ways , throughout history of "balancing power".
BUT THE USA - CROSSES OCEANS and seas far from its own borders - far beyond the 500 miles outside its own shores -- to wage wars and meddling in affairs that produce consequences of wars (not only between itself and THOSE in the far regions, but also involves or Excarbates the skirmishes in those regions BEcAUSE of its meddling).
as Patrich Buchanan correctly put it, to put an example:
"WE DIDN'T LIKE IT when the USSR was in OUR neighborhood of Cuba .....so......what are WE doing in Russia's neighborhood? we should get out of this business of empire and get out of those lands before they
kick us out of there".
SPorts - even contact sports in other regions - from TRIBES to countries are , like anywhere else - representations of some kind of "battle" or "war"...but have been "elevated" or "idealized" - as a way of encapsulating - but also BOTTLING UP -- ACTUAL war.....placing "aggression" into something that cultures can "waste" their energies into while avoiding actual war...and almost invariably are in regions with neighboring countries steeped in wars and conflicts that KNOW how COSTLY it is to their own sovereignties AND any relationships with neighbors, no matter how delicate, to even CONTEMPLATE actual war.
Sports IN the USA are used as PREPARATIONS for actual WAR. ....where the USA KNOWS that it has NO neighbors against which it wages war that would spill over into its own borders in a massive way (considering also its great military power to defend) ...
and THEREFORE wages wars and meddles in other regions where the GREATEST victims ARE the countries and people ELSEWHERE...from the USA's meddling.
YES americans are rightly concerned that the wars of the USA abroad are "costing us too much" ....
YET for every dollar that the USA loses , or every life or limb the USA loses in its foreign meddling -- the consequences to OTHER people are much greater during the times when the USA wages these interferences in their regional affairs towards ITS "national interest".
for ONE american soldier that dies in afghanistan -- SEVERAL afghani LIVES are destroyed.
for ONE american FAMILY's interrupted life of peace with one soldier going away to kill or die for the sake of "national security and the american way"....
MANY communities elsewhere are destroyed or disrupted in their ways of ordering themselves - who - before the USA meddled in their affairs - their ordinary people had NO QUARRELS with that same "ordinary american family" that sent its soldier to CAUSE an EFFECT elsewhere that is SO broad and long-lasting - and it is SUFFERING by other people, more than already was there before the USA meddled.
I really think it's time for women everywhere to put the ideals of Lysistrata into action, without exception.
I thought Lysistrata suggested non-action.
:O)
Touche. : )
I, for one, will start to thank teachers, truckdrivers, farm workers, for their "service". To hell with anyone stupid enough to sign up for America's cruel and profitable wars!!!
I'm with you, Kickapoo. I am going to start thanking people specifically for NOT being in the military.
Seventhson
A most excellent point as those people, perhaps, realize that there is no genuine glory or honor in belonging to an organization that is wrongfully suppressing, brutalizing, terrorizing, and murdering innocent civilians in the Middle East. Those are the people who deserve to have parades held in their honor instead of the robots who blindly obey the orders that they are given in the military.
There are 2 types of solider.
One, the man who believes what he's fighting for, Sir, i salute you .
Then you have the mercenary with a fucked up life who listens to the recurters lies about the military getting his life back in order( I'll enlist the day i can't find one vet who's homeless.). Sir I pity you, in your insecurity and weakness you've given up your right to self determination. Not to mention your going to get out in 3 years with the same fucked up life, and a 100% higher chance of having a kid with a birth defect.
The problem here is after WWII we never figured out how to switch back to a peace based economy. Other nations do it, Japan had excellent economic growth with a very small military.
And Socialist, stop now . The last thing we need to do is ask government for more. People, not giant government agencies need to help people.
This is a rant, but alot of these same coffeeshop revolutionaries talk socialist this, income redistribution that while wasting money on new tech.
If you have a Iphone, you are not a socialist. If you brought a new car, you are not a socialist. It starts with you helping your neighbors, not some "revolution" which will end with the same douchbag types in power
>>If you have a Iphone, you are not a socialist. If you brought a new car, you are not a socialist.<<
Got the minimum Nokia phone. Never bought a new car. Guess I'm a socialist. Gee, doesn't hurt at all. Hey, everybody in the pool!
Gary
"A free and open society is an ongoing conflict, interrupted periodically by compromises."
-- Saul Alinsky
keithsoulasa
Your claims are way off base such as when you assert that "The last thing we need to do is ask government for more." I continually hear this less than compassionate demand here in the Pacific Northwest by the less than compassionate libertarians. You may wish to ask your elderly relatives if they wish to do away with their Social Security checks and Medicare benefits. I know for a fact that my father could not possibly survive without having that aid available to him from the so-called hated government. You may wish to ask people [that is the poor whom Obama rarely mentions in any of his speeches] if they would like the government to bail out Wall Street or stop the foreclosures of those lower class people who are in danger of losing their homes and forced to live on the streets. Try asking the families of those people in this country who have lost their loved ones [about 45,000 of them each year] because they were unable to receive adequate health care if they would think that universal health care is something evil and horrid. No other advanced country in the world can make that claim because their governments commit the heinous acts of making sure that none of its citizens will have to die because they do not receive basic health care in the country that they live. I realize that that is a foreign concept to many Americans but universal health care is considered a right and not a privilege because they dare, unlike the United States, to be compassionate to their citizens. You can also ask if people who have had to declare bankruptcy because they were unable to pay their medical bills would be interested in having the government make sure that that would not have to happen to them. You will probably find this hard to believe [if, that is, you actually care] but no one has to end up in the poor house in any other industrialized country on this planet and that is, again, because those countries have, shockingly, something called universal health care which the United States, to its eternal shame, will not even consider implementing for the good of its citizens. If that is considered socialism, then I say, to recall the words of Patrick Henry, let us make the most of it.
Your other false assertion is that "If you brought [sic] a new car, you are not a socialist." Wrong again. Socialists are not against the purchase of new items. Perhaps you are somehow confusing the philosophy of socialism with the ideology of the Amish or the Mennonites. Socialism is not against the purchase of a $50,000 automobile for example. It does believe that purchasing a $500,000 automobile is quite superfluous since the manufacturing of those types of vehicles is simply a waste of manpower considering how very few people will ever buy a car which costs that much money.
There are things that a government does bad such as unnecessarily waging war. But there are certainly good things that it can do such as the things that I have previously mentioned.
<<<<<<< 1) the U.S. ratio of one guard or threat laborer for every 2.3 civilian employees not engaged in maintaining order was the highest among the industrialized nations >>>>>>
Gee, you would think so? Isn't this commonsensical? When you want to make sure a small group of people gets a lot more money than they deserve, and then make sure a great number of people gets a lot less money than they rightfullly deserve, itsn't this how you do it?
You must have a lot of prisons, a lot of law and order workers (from lawyers to policemen, to guards, to "managers"), and therefore proportionately fewer workers who are engaged in actual production
Isn't this what capitalism is all about? Even the "progressives" know this is what the world should be. And you don't?