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How the Power of Myth Keeps Us Mired in War
Why Are We Still in Afghanistan?
When I try to figure out why we are still in Afghanistan, though every ounce of logic says we ought to get out, an unexpected conversation I had last year haunts me. Doing neighborhood political canvassing, I knocked on the door of a cheerful man who was just about to tune in to his favorite radio show: Rush Limbaugh. He was kind enough to let me stay and we talked.
Conservatives are often the nicest people -- that’s what I told him -- the ones you’d like to have as neighbors. Then I said: I bet you’re always willing to help your neighbors when they need it. Absolutely, he replied.
So why, I asked, don’t you to want to help out people across town who have the same needs, even if they’re strangers? His answer came instantly: Because I know my neighbors work hard and do all they can to take care of themselves. I don’t know about those people across town.
He didn’t have to say more (though he did). I knew the rest of the story: Why should I give my hard-earned money to the government so they can hand it out to strangers who, for all I know, are good-for-nothing loafers and mooches? I want to be free to decide what to do with my dough and I’ll give it to responsible people who believe in taking care of themselves and their families, just like me. I’ll give my money to the government only to protect us from strangers in distant lands who don’t believe in the sacred rights of the individual and aim to take my freedom and money away.
What a story it is -- a tale of mythic proportions! As an historian of religions, I was trained to appreciate, even marvel at the myths people tell to make sense out of the chaos of their lives. So I can’t help admiring the conservative myth: so simple yet all encompassing, offering clear and easy-to-grasp answers that cut through the everyday complexities besetting us all.
Of course, the answers are far too simplistic, as stupid (in my opinion) as they are dangerous. But I was also trained to be non-judgmental and to admire the power of a myth even when I find it morally abhorrent. And this one is impressive, with its classic good-guys-versus-bad-guys plot line turned into a stark political tale of freedom versus slavery.
White Americans, going back to early colonial times, generally assigned the role of “bad guys” to “savages” lurking in the wilderness beyond the borders of our civilized land. Whether they were redskins, commies, terrorists, or the Taliban, the plot has always remained the same.
Call it the myth of national security -- or, more accurately, national insecurity, since it always tells us who and what to fear. It’s been a mighty (and mighty effective) myth exactly because it lays out with such clarity not just what Americans are against, but also what we are for, what we want to keep safe and secure: the freedom of the individual, especially the freedom to make and keep money.
The President Trapped in a Myth and a War
No politician who aspires to real influence on the national level can afford to reject that myth or even express real doubts about it, at least in public, as Barack Obama surely knows. Not surprisingly, President Obama has embraced the myth in his most important speeches: The bad guys are always out there. (“Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world.”) The good guys have no choice but to fight against the evildoers. (“Force may sometimes be necessary.”)
Because
every myth has variants, though, politicians can still make choices. In
Obama’s version of the myth, the federal government can be a force for
good. So he has a domestic fight on his hands every day against
right-wingers who cast the government as an agent of darkness.
He’s not likely to stand a chance of winning that battle if he tries to take on the myth of national security as well. Bill Clinton once put it all-too-accurately: "When people are insecure” -- which is exactly when they rely most on their myths -- “they'd rather have somebody [in the White House] who is strong and wrong than someone who's weak and right."
That’s a truth everyone in the room undoubtedly had in mind back in the fall of 2009 when the top military field commanders came to the White House to talk about Afghanistan. Where else, after all, could our military act out the drama of civilized America staving off the savages? And what better-cast candidates for the role of savages could there be than the Taliban and al-Qaeda?
The generals who run the war also had to confront another vital question: Could they still act out some contemporary version of the myth of good against evil? They’ve given up on the possibility of victory in Afghanistan. So there’s no real chance to go for the classic version of the myth in which the good guys totally vanquish the bad guys.
But since the Cold War era, the myth has demanded only that the good guys don’t lose -- that they merely “contain” the evildoers who “hate our freedoms” (especially our freedom to make and keep money) and will swoop down to destroy us if we give them the chance.
These days the generals must sense that even the containment version of the myth is in trouble. Their predecessors failed to enact it in Vietnam, and though the judgment of history is still out on the Iraq War, it's looking ever more dim, too. If the U.S. loses in Afghanistan, the American public might abandon the myth that justifies the military establishment and its gargantuan budget. As a result, the generals prefer to fight on eternally.
President Obama is trapped at this point. He risks losing both a war and a presidency. Yet if he tries to ease up on the war accelerator, he knows he’ll be pilloried by an alliance of military and right-wing forces as a “cut-and-run” weakling.
If he’s ever tempted to forget that domestic political reality, the mass media are always ready to remind him. Just glance at the 145,000 Google hits on “Obama wimp.” Even his liberal friends at the New York Times have asked in a prominent headline, “Is Obama a Wimp or a Warrior?”
Within the confines of the national insecurity myth, of course, those are the only two options. If pressure is ever going to develop to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, progressives will have to offer a new option that actually speaks to Americans.
To Myth or Not to Myth
And there’s the problem. Myths are like scientific theories. No mountain of facts and logic, however convincing, can change believers’ minds -- until a more convincing myth comes along.
A handful of progressive political thinkers are trying to persuade the American left to understand this truth and start offering new political myths (their technical term is “framing narratives”). George Lakoff is probably the best known. His books are bestsellers. His articles on websites invariably go to the top of “most read” and “most emailed” lists. Yet he can’t seem to make much of a dent in the actual policies and practices he’d like to change.
Progressives still shower the public with facts and arguments that are hard to refute, as (in the case of the Afghan War) the American people know. After all, more than 60% of them now tell pollsters that the war was a “mistake.” Yet the war goes on and progressives remain the most marginal of players in the American political game because they don’t have a great myth to offer. In fact, they’ve hardly got any good ones.
Political scientist David Ricci claims there’s not much progressives can do about it, precisely because they already have one very successful myth that prevents them -- oh, the irony! -- from taking the power of myths seriously. The progressive heritage, as he tells it, goes back to the eighteenth century Enlightenment, when the radicals of the day decided that fact and logic were the source of all truth and the only path to peace and freedom.
The Bible and all the other ancient tales bind us to the past, they argued. As a result, humanity was letting dead people lock us into the injustices that bred endless war and suffering. It was time to let human reason open up a better future.
If progressives believe they are myth-less, though, they’re blind to the one mythic plot they share with the rest of America: good against evil. Progressives act out that myth on the political battlefield every day, passionately fighting to defeat right-wing evildoers.
The problem is (and forgive me for repeating an old anti-left cliché of the 1960s, but it’s true here): the progressives’ political myth tells only what they’re against, not what they’re for.
In fact, deep down, most progressives do have a dim sense of their deepest principles: the Enlightenment ideals of peace, freedom, and equality based on the Romantic ideal of what Lakoff calls empathy, extended to all humanity and the biosphere as well.
But progressives don’t wrap their policy prescriptions in mythic language that says clearly, simply, and patriotically what they’re for. As a result, they can’t compete with the myth of national insecurity. They’ve got nothing to offer in its place, which is at least one reason why, despite growing opposition to the Afghan War, they can’t build a strong enough constituency to help -- or force -- Obama to end it.
All they can do is demand that he sacrifice his domestic agenda, and -- no small matter for any politician -- his second-term chances, on the altar of principle. As a result, they end up in a political never-never-land, which might feel good but isn’t going to save a single Afghan life.
No individual, much less a committee, can sit down and create a new myth. Myths grow organically from the life of a community. Progressives would find their myth emerging spontaneously if they just spent a lot more time thinking and talking about their most basic worldview and values, the underlying premises that lead them to hold their political positions with such passion.
A strong progressive myth could make it safer for a president to change course and perhaps save his presidency. Failure to stave off the bad guys destroyed Lyndon Johnson and gravely wounded George W. Bush. I suspect Obama would love to have a great progressive myth keep him from a similar fate. He won’t create it, but he’d probably be delighted to see it appear on the horizon.
80 Comments so far
Show Allwilling ignorance is the petri dish of myth...
if you want to know, look...
if, when looking, one cannot see, be skeptical...
if able to see, be a bit less so...
other people will lie, if not murder, to their advantage...
don't believe, or condone...
one on a pedestal can only come down...should come down...
go outside, look around...
breathe, and focus on the breathing...
Wow, you are paying attention aren't you professor Ira? This was your opus imho. (in my humble opinion)
So now from here we may begin or look for the beginnings or see how we have already begun. Action, sweet consolate action. I'm going to just enjoy this for awhile, savor it.
How about heros saving the planet from corporations, a la Avatar, or is that still preaching to the choir?
I agree.
What bothers me about this article is that there is no mention of the radical tradition of labor, anarchist, communists and socialists in U.S. history. No mention of class analysis and capitalism.
Radicals had a good myth to work with: overthrow the bastards! Create egalitarian workplaces owned by the workers (well the anarchists said this!). Create direct democratic structures around the community and workplaces.
This article is for liberals that still want the "good" life, a "middle class" life and all the benefits that are given to those that support empire.
Radicals should read this article closely and understand why liberals are really the enemy of progress. Liberals are handmaidens of empire.
Obama isn't trapped in a myth--unless it is the myth of his own merit--otherwise why would be running for re-election be his topmost consideration? Here is a clue to his priorities--and they aren't progressive by any stretch:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/138991-obama-dem-lawmakers-diverge-on-social-security-
Typical progressive myth is constantly straining credibility to come up with yet another excuse for Obama while simultaneouusly blaming progressives for some failing.
VERN: Excellent concluding statement!
Like Lakoff, Chernus gets lost inside his own paradigm. In this case, straining to make the case for myth, he confuses pretense (the lies used to justify war) with true cause (MIC/war profiteers/oil)!
The myths surrounding war, brute force, and heroism-AS-aggression belong to times that pre-date Rome. They are powerful archetypal forces represented by and through the war god, Mars.
This archetype, in my view, dominates much of the Bible. Therefore quite a bit of patriarchal conditioning stems from this source, and predates Obama (and any call to progressives to manufacture an alternative myth). Decoupling genuine spirituality from the long religious practice of worshipping the god of war (in the place of Jesus or Moses) is the call to those who see through the inherent dangers of this dominant myth.
Tied to religious tradition, the angry jealous warrior god has been the dominant message for several millennia; and it's effectively indoctrinated persons at levels both conscious and unconscious.
It is largely those who have internalized the "wisdom" of patriarchal traditions who cannot see outside their own paradigm. It's far easier to blame progressives by suggesting our message is impotent, or that we're too much like cats to fall into an organized herd. Meanwhile, most major communication venues (the very ones necessary for summoning a collective awakening) are closed off, already sold to the highest bidders in a phase where corporate personhood comes first. Where, after all, would Mars be without Mammon, or vice versa? The make-war state needs booty, and booty finances it. It's the perfect recipe for the most heinous form of quid pro quo, and it IS what Amerika is serving.
I see you've read your Bible, Miss Rose.
Joe
Myths never felt very 'power'-ful to me, even though ever intellectual on the planet talks about myths as if they carried the actual gun and fired the actual bullet.
I don't think so. I think humanity is far, far darker. We don't need to spin tales to kill people, some folks really enjoy it and would do it for nothing.
If Americans really believed in God and "myths" they would be screaming in the streets. They're not. Case closed.
Myths never felt very 'power'-ful to me, even though ever intellectual on the planet talks about myths as if they carried the actual gun and fired the actual bullet.'
Myths are not about that kind of power.
An interesting article - derivative of those by Lakoff, but interesting.
On the other hand, if he really does study myths:
"What a story it is -- a tale of mythic proportions! As an historian of religions, I was trained to appreciate, even marvel at the myths people tell to make sense out of the chaos of their lives"
he should think about the dominant one in his life - religion. It is a perfect example of the kind of myth that "people tell to make sense out of the chaos of their lives."
It seems he cannot see the forest for the trees.
Another well written crock of shit that does not explain to readers that the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is a corporate imperial war to gain hegemony over Central Asia resources.
"Political scientist David Ricci claims there’s not much progressives can do about it"
The "progressives" should have started educating the voters nine years ago to the well established agenda to militarize Central Asia via Afghanistan and surrounding countries to gain hegemony over the resources of oil and gas rich countries that were once part of the old Russia.
The money makers in this scenario are the MIC and Big Oil and potentially other resource industries seeking to exploit Afghanistan's natural resource wealth.
This ridiculous article makes no mention of Pipelineistan, the trans-Afghan pipeline plans that have been well documented since the 1990'S. Any fool could Google the topic and find endless information that seems to have evaded the intellect of this authors.
Unfortunately, nearly all western writers on Afghanistan fail to mention the exploitation of Central Asia resources via Afghanistan. Is this article complicity or just incompetence ?
The Al Qaeda "national security" problem within Afghanistan could have been handled as an international police action as it has been throughout the world. And we could pull out of Afghanistan now and keep watch on the remaining (perhaps 100) members of Al Qaeda still in the region without attempting to conquer all of Afghanistan.
But the invasion and occupation has offended 40 million Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan who are prepared to fight the occupation forever and ever with translates into a Vietnamistan.
An interesting "terror" fact that the corporate media failed to report on was that the Bush administration gave the Taliban $43 Million in "aid" in the spring of 2001 knowing that Osama was still hanging out in Afghanistan after playing his CIA roll in the covert war to push the Russians out of Afghanistan. Many say the $43 Million was to grease the skids for a trans-Afghan UNOCAL pipeline deal that the Taliban rejected.
Perhaps the most insane advocates of global corporate imperial warfare as the heart of American foreign policy are the far-right neocons who grew out of the Reagan era and were very organized by the time Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court.
It was the PNAC neocons who long ago advocated the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a larger plan to achieve military dominance in the Middle East and Central Asia with the primary goal being the control and exploitation of hydrocarbon resources.
A brief background on the PNAC folks:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title…
Afghanistan is the only pipeline route that Big Oil could possibly create to market the oil and gas resources of Central Asia to various Asian nations with India being one of the primary markets.
There was a time in Washington when the neocons were thought of as the "crazies" but now their policies are fully supported by Congress and the White House. Obomber is simple furthering the policies set in motion by the neocons and the Bush years.
Crazy has become normal. Major war crimes are now part of American foreign policy.
And many of the neocons hold investments in the MIC and oil industries, as do members of Congress. And of course they are bankrupting our Federal budget and draining the American economy while lining their pockets.
Yet the progressives remain silent on the resource hegemony issues which would rally voters from both sides of the aisle and create more public opposition to the imperial wars.
Friggin' Bravo man. I really do wonder though if progressives are merely blind or ignorant on the subject, hence their silence.
I'm also amazed to know that very well respected academics seem to believe that O is a good guy making the best of it that he can.
GONZO: You made a great case here. Thank you.
Gonzo you painted the fraud pundit very well.
Gonzo,
as long as you are not benefiting from these so called "imperial wars", are not an active part of our society, your finger pointing has merit if not reason. "The money makers" in this story are also the American Public ever demanding cheaper products even if it is toward their own demise. Perhaps you are not a citizen of this country, or any other developed or developing country. I cannot say, but if you are, then your crock is merely calling the kettle black. In the event your entire story is true then why you cannot connect that the people who have the desire to change this dynamic are not the people who are creating and benifitting from it but the one's benefitting from it in their own way, but not enough. Not enough to sit by and watch it's destined demise through time and natures greater laws of checks and balances. That group is sitting by, bystanders to the game often called empire by those self described witnesses to the crime. But stop the crime? Oh no, not for them.
I like the thought that we become crime stoppers, those of us who care, but no, we are crime reporters. We'll leave the stopping up to god or nature, or the next hero figure that can do it for us all as Obama's hero credentials appear now to have been faux the whole time. This is a dead horse that it appears the betrayed will not stop beating for anything, not even to save themselves.
Lea said "I like the thought that we become crime stoppers, those of us who care, but no, we are crime reporters. We'll leave the stopping up to god or nature, or the next hero figure that can do it for us all as Obama's hero credentials appear now to have been faux the whole time. This is a dead horse that it appears the betrayed will not stop beating for anything, not even to save themselves."
BRAVO LEA!
Unfortunately it doesn't look like the crime reporters will stop beating the dead horse long enough to organize into crime stoppers any time soon. Just keep it up guys. Maybe you can join up with the tea baggers (who you're beginning to sound more and more like) and help them defeat Obama in 2012 - just as you helped them win the House in the last election by sitting on your hands and not voting. Hmmmm. Or was this the plan? I guess if things get even WORSE you'll have even more to bitch about, right?
Thank you dgkaufman. :)
Let me take a guess. Chernus is an academic and might lose his tenure if he told the truth instead of writing about "myths" ?
Actually, his article creates a rationalization that indirectly supports the occupation.
For a real explanation of the money agendas involved in Afghanistan, including the heroin trade, give this article a try.
The War on Afghanistan is a Profit driven "Resource War".
by Michel Chossudovsky
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19769
Exactly.
Thanks for the link as well.
Yes, just about every single war in history is/was driven by profit and transfer of huge amounts of resources and wealth. As I have often cited: "The History of the Peloponessian War" by Thucydides, talks about this - over 2,000 years ago.
So, is the 'Afghan War' mentioned in this article (against al-Qaeda and the Taliban) the same as the 'War on Terror' (against al-Qaeda and the Taliban) in other articles?
Gee, perhaps it might help if we ALL called this insanity by the same name. And how about not using the language of conservatives, while we're at it?
- progressives will have to offer a new option -
1. There is no victory in this insanity, whatever you call it. The declaration of war (P.L. 107-40) does not have an achievable or sane goal (compare to the declaration of war against Germany, 1941 - clear and achievable goal).
2. As G. Lakoff wrote: 'Stop using conservative language'. Call this insanity by our own term - I again suggest DAFT (Defense against Future Terrorism). If we can't even win the linguistic battle, we have no hope of winning the war (to end the war).
3. Blame the system. That is a multi-partisan strategy. Focus on repealing Public Law 107-40, as Barbara Lee has tried (she was the ONLY person to vote against this monstrosity back in 2001).
4. There is the real threat of future terrorism in the world. Instead of ignoring that (i.e. 'let's just withdraw from Afghanistan/AfPak'), we should focus on providing a smarter strategy.
I have posted repeatedly that Obama will not, in time of war, 'withdraw' from Afghanistan (or is it AfPak? - oh, just wait, someone will come along and use that term, as well).
We must end the war, by legally ending it. Then the troops will be brought home, because the Republicans will impeach Obama if he doesn't (give the R's a MOTIVE for ending this insanity).
- No individual, much less a committee, can sit down and create a new myth. -
But a community, such as CD here, can.
The grand idea above, from the lowly locust, is only the compilation of many, many ideas that I have read and digested here.
One locust is nothing. Even several cannot accomplish anything if they all go off in different directions, with different goals.
To make numbers count, we must have the same language, the same clear goal.
End Public Law 107-40 and we end the DAFT war.
Those like Lakoff who spout the mantra that those on the left, simply have a messaging problem in the form of, lack of a simple frame that the little people can understand seem to miss two points.
One, is some assumed level "playing field" in regard to disseminating frames that doesn't exist (i.e. the status quo in regards to the political and economic powers that MSM represents).
Two, most Americans, unfortunately, aren't interested in the facts, that framing is supposed bash them over the head with. As such, in my view, the frames are misunderstood by those targeted by them, and can result in a political "blowback", where the intent behind the frame is lost to those huddling masses.
DAFT is exactly the kind of framing that is completely in line with Dick Cheney's 1% doctrine, and precisely the kind of "frame" that would be easily misconstrued, with the good intent turned on its head.
DAFT would have fit perfectly into the propaganda contained in Judith Miller's front page NYT articles.
I realize that isn't the "DAFT" you intend, but wouldn't a Defense Against Future Terrorism mantra, be used for indefinite detention of Guantanamo detainees, according to the purveyors of the core propaganda?
How about the extension of the Patriot Act? Those who wish to continue this attack on the Fourth Amendment have essentially adopted a DAFT rationale. The NSA illegal wiretapping? Well Thug in Chief Hayden would have loved having that simple frame to grab onto – not that he needed it.
Attack Iran? The proponents of an attack might just find DAFT very handy indeed.
In fact, the whole preemptive war ideology of the Neocons has been claimed by them to be DAFT.
HUE: Please consider #3:
The Bible speaks in the bifurcated language of good and evil. Few Western children are not indoctrinated into this way of thinking.
Therefore, if you want to talk about frames or powerfully established memes, the premise of good fighting evil qualifies. Since Bush stole that one, and used it to act the role of aggressor while falsely identifying with "the good," it's no longer available. It's significant that Bush's major base, apart from the small niche comprised of the very wealthy, were those who attend fundamentalist churches. You better believe the good versus evil meme worked POWERFULLY on that demographic.
Since Chernus completely identifies with the Bible, he's not going to deconstruct its key mythology or how that very message DRIVES war! Like the right wing chorus (or the centrist democrats who can't find a conservative cause they won't go along with), he's too busy placing the onus on progressives for the failures of our time.
I am sick of it!
Siouxrose,
Thanks for pointing out #3. In fact, I initially meant to expound on that as an excellent point, but instead got sucked into that insidious mental disease of our time – infinite angst. Not that angst isn't a rational response to ambient dysfunction with fatalistic overtones, but I try to force a perceptual shift on occasion to the positive, even if only for the sake of experiencing its relative novelty.
As to the demographic that you highlight, relative to its propensity to be framed in argumentative galleries worthy of neanderthal patronage…
I was raised in a Southern Baptist Church. I was absolutely brainwashed, until the age of 17. I won't bore you with that story, of how my intellect was "set free", but suffice to say, it had everything to do with being faced with a different set of facts, self realized. It had absolutely zip to do with someone "framing" something for me.
Although, I don't dismiss the power of frames, I just on principle, don't wish to take part in that practice. I think the dismantling of frames, turning arguments on their "heads" if you will, is the more powerful strategy. I'm a living example of how one's "frame" can be loosened from the perceptive wall, with the gravity of fact, or even truth.
It's unfortunate that Chernus framed this piece around "myth," but the basic idea that you have to be for something rather than just against things seems valid and crucial. It's not a question of telling the truth about the problems and who is causing them and why. We need to say what we are fighting for, in terms most Americans will understand. What kind of world are we fighting for?
a non-electric one...a non-industrial one...an unowned one...a local one...
a viable one...
Without electricity you could not even use your computer.
I know
"I suspect Obama would love to have a great progressive myth keep him from a similar fate. He won’t create it, but he’d probably be delighted to see it appear on the horizon."
________________________
Ouch. I try not to overreact to every CD pundit's suggestion that Obama is perhaps more to be pitied than censured, but when I come upon them it's like stubbing one's toe or being whaled on the funnybone.
If Obama is "trapped", it's along the lines of the confederate on the inside telling his partners in crime to tie him up real good during the caper, so it looks authentic when the cops finally show up.
The only thing Obama would love about a "great progressive myth" is that it would be an opportunity to milk it for all the "swing votes" it's worth.
Mythed by a mile!
Ira is getting warm here. The first thing brains do when they become human brains is to cook up stories. Even good old science, if Heisenberg et al are to be taken seriously, is more about our theories and our scales than anything actually out there.
To understand that we live in an environment of tales and myths rather than objective realities or eternal truths might be very powerful stuff if developed deliberately, "weaponized" as it were, to win political battles. Our commandos break into the limbic control room and change the comic strip by adjusting the storyboard. But like most weapons it can backfire. To acknowledge that we are always in Storybookland is very close to saying that there is no way that things actually are, and consequently no way that things need to be. When Buddhist mystics come to this realization they tend to calm down politically. They sit down and shut up and get little mysterious smiles on their faces. This would probably be a good thing for most of us, but not very useful for vanquishing our Republican foes, if that is the intent of narrative framing.
Freedom and Money for Myself is a pretty basic narrative. It is an infantile imperative, and most of us will tend to reject subsequent stories that don't promote that outcome.
hey, voxclamantis!
your post got me going...
philosophically, the world is, perhaps, difficult to pin down...hence the resigned smiles and resumed seats...this might also be the response when contemplating one is facing overwhelming foes...a resignation, but a different one...
physically, however, there is such a definition...chemical virginity, the natural condition prior to the industrial and chemical activities of the human species...
we conveniently separate our philosophies from our planet...from our bodies...from our own influence and, therefore, our own responsibility...
someone historically raised the notion of relieving the suffering of others as a primary life purpose...this sounds like action, rather than resignation...
one must live one's life, up to and including defining one's own philosophy, cooperatively managing and defending one's region and fellows, and dispensing local justice...
this is the myth...that life is reactive, rather than proactive...that one's necessities are purchased from others, one's safety is secured by others, the affairs determining one's social construct made by others, one's thoughts inherited or implanted from others, and one's future dedicated to the repayment of lifelong, hobbling debt to titled and weaponed others...
all made possible by the theft, and neverending ownership and resale, of the land, once unified, now divided into prepackaged parcels...
my usual message, again...peace, voxclamantis!
Ignoring the duopoly is buying into an extremely debilitating myth of Dimos versus Repugs.
Pretty elementary understanding, its a duopoly.
While Chernus raises some interesting and no doubt meritous points, I tend to take a more material/financial angle of analysis.
As Chris Hedges pointed out last week, it does not matter whether the war/occupation/military action is "successful" or not. Huge sums of money are made by corporate interests, paid for by debt, which leads to debt-service, which leads to a higher and higher cost. The Banksters are making a killing (literally) as well as the Corporate Media Oligopoly as well as all the war-profiteer MIC related no-bid contract "winners".
In short, war/occupation/empire is the most effective kleptocratic tool to steal trillions of dollars from the public and give it to corporate cronies and the Bankster Mafia. The financial analyst and critic, Max Keiser, elaborates further on the connections between war, empire, banks and finance.
The Banksters are indeed the most powerful of the 5 families of the Corporate Mafia.
It has been that way since the beginning of time. Just read Thucydides.
"Ira is getting warm here."
True, but why not explain that the "national security" and "war on terror" myths are smokescreens for global corporate imperialism supported by the Pentagon and Congress and the White House at the expense of the American taxpayer as well as many lives and a great deal of suffering.
Or as Smedley Butler said long ago:
"I spent 33 years in the Marines. Most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism."
"War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."
This is still news to most Americans and anyone writing on the wars is negligent, in a very deadly way, by not explaining the real reasons for these wars.
GONZO/Socialist/Dubet: All excellent posts.
firstly, obamas campaign rhetoric were outright lies==with
no intention to end the bushite wars.
secondly, team obama professes to buy into the party
line of neocons that a cave dwelling boogeyman and 19
airline pilot school flunkouts pulled off the tech
genius whieh was 9/11.
ergo we have barak's holy drone crusade to tora bora
and his proliferation of anything but peace.
team obama hopes the demmy base will fall for the same
lies and mount a re-elect effort to give him another
chance==he likes the b-ball court at the wh, and the
vacations and parties are the greatest.
and with no other saviour stepping out, who is to say
his ploy wont work ???? kucinich is gone, nader too old,
feingolds seat is now out on the national mall.
perhaps there is hope but who will now personify it ????
Ira,
The truth is the people want peace and prosperity, dignity and freedom but are left out and called "left" by the corporations and you too Ira, who pretend that they are giving the left a chance to speak.
The failed stupid myth of progressives is that they can convince that majority to join the Left.
The successful myth of the conservatives and corporate interests is that progressives have a shot at peace when they are trapped like slaves being labeled Left.
They love our stupidity, as we are good slaves to this incredibly bad myth.
The new myth should be a true myth.. The majority wants to be right and not called left.
Myths are created by words and truth is revealed by words.
A good myth is a short explainable and working model of essential truth.
A bad myth is a lie.
The truth is the people don't want to be left they want to be right.
I am right until proven wrong and that is my good myth... feel free to steal it if you want change and loose these chains.
The problem with progressives and liberals (there is no 'Left' in the US) is that they don't want to listen to conservatives - and most Americans do believe they are 'conservative' (that's the myth that's been promoted by the sophisticated professionals that manufacture propaganda in the US).
Too many people - from the progressive and liberal side of the aisle - would rather 'be right' (with their facts ready to prove it) than to actually win their case and make progress. I run into this all the time - getting 'Lefties' to do anything is like herding cats (snarly cats, at that).
Anyone who's read Campbell (or attended his classes, or listened to his lectures) knows that human societies run on myth - it's just a 'fact' of life. Myths are idealistic - they contain stereotypes (arch-types) that perform certain functions that (supposedly) lead to a better (more moral) society.
The Nazis manufactured a myth to serve their purpose, just as the Zionists did - as all empires do. The US is no different - it's just that the US, Nazi, and Zionist myths are thoroughly corrupted - but people don't want to hear about that. (That's where the blame-game comes in - it's somebody else's fault, you know.) Just like Nazi Germany - if society is dysfunctional, just find someone to demonize and all is well once the 'demons' are purged. There is no appeal for personal responsibility - no demand for moral behavior - no clamor for justice - no disincentives for violating the rules that govern a viable society. The myth itself is corrupt - the normal archtypes simply are not there - there are no universal ideals.
Johnson (LBJ) tried to invent a new myth - the 'Great Society' - but he was serving the MIC, and conflicting interests doomed him (he wanted to get re-elected). The problem with presidents (or Congress-critters) in a corrupt and entrenched bureaucracy is that no 'leader' can change the rotten bureaucracy that actually makes all the important decisions. That's why in all myths, the old tyrants are totally vanquished, along with their corrupt minions - they represent the rotten and corrupt bureaucracy, not the ordinary (morally superior, of course) people. Humbug!
In a few years, it won't matter - fascism, peak oil, and environmental degradation will make all these arguments irrelevant. Those inconvenient 'facts' will turn our world upsidedown - you can ignore reality, but that doesn't change it. Myths only apply to perception - illusion - and that's why all empires (and wannabes) die the same way. No use wringing our hands about this 'fact' - the illusions will fail when reality comes crashing in. Nothing we do today can make much difference - whether you're conservative, progressive, or a wacko from either radical end. We live in interesting times...
There are no wackos on the left end. The left end is defined by universal equity/justice, the definition of maximum collective well-being, happiness, and fulfillment. Nobody wants to embrace this leftist frame because this means throwing away most everything one was taught by elite propagandists to believe in, mostly bogus things. Embrace the leftist frame and you're on your way to nirvana. There's a simple dimension, with the left end defined as such and the right end defined as the polar opposite: Classist hierarchy, maximum exploitation, slavery and plunder. As implied, the leftist frame contradicts the elites' propaganda so most people reject it to maintain the pretenses that camouflage the ugly reality. Along with the leftist frame is the clear indication of appropriate action: The people's shifting all of their exchange/association away from elite enterprises and toward their local communities, to starve the elite parasites to death.
"And there’s the problem. Myths are like scientific theories. No mountain of facts and logic, however convincing, can change believers’ minds -- until a more convincing myth comes along."
I am shocked shocked shocked that a professor of religious studies would completely not understand anything about scientific theories.
"when the radicals of the day decided that fact and logic were the source of all truth and the only path to peace and freedom."
The radicals of the day decided that fact and logic were the source of all truth about the material world. (as opposed to the imaginings of religious nutters)
The greatest myth of all comes from WWII. That victory doomed the US to sixty years of wars. People like Brokaw and his "Greatest Generation" have solidified the hold that glorious war has on all Americans. The myth basically says: There are clear-cut bad guys. Negotiation is the same as capitulation. Violence solves problems. We have been living that myth through Korea, through Vietnam, through Gulf I, through Iraq, and through all of the wars we are presently waging. A wonderful myth it is--placing America on the white horse, ready to do battle against the Black Knight. Only trouble is--it is only a story. And it isn't true.
Ira Chemus wants progressives to come up with a great progressive myth to make it safer for Obama to change course and perhaps save his presidency.
Progressives deal in reality not mythology.
Something stinks. Something else must be going on. Why the sudden urge to grab everyone else's oil? What is the motivation behind this? They know something. Don't give me "peak oil." What is it?
This is not sudden. It's been going on for some time. The British in the Mideast, the overthrow of Mossadegh, and all kinds of chicanery in South America to assure that the US and Britain have control of oil.
Joe
Chernus seems to focus on political myths and the liberal-progressive deficiency in developing one and repeating it until gets through the Republican myth machine's clatter. He gives slight notice to the fact that the Republicans also have religious myths working for them, while most progressives-liberals, I would wager, are agnostic or atheistic. And we know that an atheistic person could never be elected president at this time.
In a wonderful little book, which I comment on in my sites: new-york-commoners-law.com and dons-review.com, Nicholas Wade in "The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures" (Penguin Books, 2009), says, "however strongly religion seems to grow out of people's personal beliefs, the practice of religion is heavily social. People desire to worship together with others of the same faith. A religion belongs to a community and shapes members' social behavior, both toward one another (the in-group) and toward nonbelievers (the out-group). The social aspect of religion is extraordinarily significant because the RULES for behavior [my emphasis] toward others are in effect a society's morality." He continues, "People will defend their religion because it undergirds so much else of what gives life quality [a social network, help with projects or in sickness, an emotional jubilation that's hard to get while living alone]." Here's the interesting part: "Practical morality is NOT universal. Compassion and forgiveness are the behaviors owed to one's in-group, but NOT necessarily to an out-group and certainly not to an enemy...From this, one can see how crucial religion has been over the centuries in ensuring a society's survival. It enhances the quality of society and makes it worth fighting for and it inspires people to lay down their lives in the society's defense. Groups with strong religious inclinations would have been more united and at considerable advantage over groups that were less cohesive [see the GOP versus the progressives-liberals]. People in the more successful groups would have left more surviving children and genes favoring an instinct for religious behavior would have become commoner." "The faithful are not mistaken," says Emile Durkheim, a founder of sociology, "when they believe in a moral power to which they are subject. That power exists and it is society [and the Darwinian unstoppable urge to survive and to spread a man's seed as much as possible. Look at the Mormon church, where baby-making is deemed a man's right and women are taught to stay home and take care of the man's children. Single people or childless people are given lip-service in one of every 100 speeches by the church's authorities.].
Buddhism definitely does not follow your template, for all persons are equally valued.
And compassionate Christianity accepts all as sisters and brothers, but Christianity has been greatly corrupted.
Like Chernus, I have often noted the generosity of ordinary conservative and religious people toward those they know. For them, I would like us to try to broaden their circle of affiliation to others and encourage them to look on worldly things in a worldly way.
However, it is not they who drive the wars. It is the mercenary weapons and oil interests. Those corporations are not driven by myths of any kind, but by a desire for wealth and power and all the perks that go with it. They use hordes of publicists and the press to confuse people about their own best interests.
Joe
The myth of the one and true universal God, all knowing, omnipresent and path to eternal life and happiness, needs to be seriously reexamined. Probably 90% or more of the world's people hold this belief in one form or other. Everyone wants 'God on his or her side.' 'God's will' has been the reason for many insane acts in this world. We tend to distort religion for what ever end we need. The myth is one of an eternal blissful life, away from the cruel hardships on this earth, and this is rewarded 'for the belief, for the faith, for doing good.' While this may seen to be the true path , it does not seem to be working very well.
Maybe come an errant asteroid, or global warming with floods and pestilence, of massive gas exterminations (methane), wars for food and water, then we may awaken to the reality we followed the 'wrong myth'. Do we need an invisible god to show us what is right and wrong in our lives and how we should treat others?. Shouldn't the laws of man and nature be enough?
The 'myth' we need is one of universal brotherhood and sisterhood, where we feel as one with the earth and its creatures both low and high, and that we are all in this together and maybe we better start taking care of our home planet and each other. Forget about an afterlife. I would call this reality check. There is no way I can prove that this is the way other than it seems more legitimate than others, and the need is immediate. And the movement toward this end will need to start with ourselves and the communities in which we live.
I think the misery of believing there is a god; creative power outside of self, or believing there is not a god; creative power does not exist at all, both amounting to the misery of having no personal creative power is enough to awaken anyone. The recent human myth of god has reached proportions to create self so much misery that humans are going insane with it. When god is brought back to self, experienced within and acted upon without, sanity returns. That is the great return we are all waiting for. Return to the garden and start all over again as human being love, peace, joy, truth, harmony, justice.
Amen to that sister.